


vile.

by krugerk (earpcin)



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Also Nicole and Waverly are together in this but I'm not tagging it so it won't show in the main tag, Angst, Daddy Kink, F/F, Heavy Angst, Sibling Incest, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-11-23 18:27:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11408055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earpcin/pseuds/krugerk
Summary: There's a clearing in a forest in her head where a winter afternoon never turns dark, where Wynonna's hand stays on her body forever. It’s always the moment right after Wynonna says she loves her, and in this version Waverly gets to say it back.OR:Wynonna's in love with her sister and there's no way any of this ends well.[not a nice fic. see the end notes for a full warning w/ lots of spoilers]





	1. Chapter 1

Waverly’s never been drunk before; Wynonna hasn’t been sober for a week. She’s eighteen and graduating and so has an automatic invite to the end of year graduation/bonfire party. She knows no one there likes her, but she’s the only one with a face old enough to pull off her fake ID, and she and the keg are a package deal.

Waverly’s tagging along because everyone likes her better, anyway. She’s the youngest person there.

Wynonna watches her out of the corner of her eyes all night, but she looks away for too long. Waverly doesn’t know how to pace herself, or else someone has gets a bit too enthusiastic with their encouragement, and when she finally finds Waverly again she’s on the floor and doesn’t want to, or can’t, get up.

“Come on, baby girl,” Wynonna sacrifices the rest of her whiskey to free her hands, and hoists Waverly up, “You’re not looking too hot. Let’s get some air, yeah?”

Something about that cracks Waverly up. _Happy drunk._

Wynonna carries her away from the main crowd, away from the fire everyone’s pointed at like a TV in a living room. The light and the heat fade, and just the cold seems to make Waverly a bit more herself.

“M’ sorry,” she says, “Drank too much,”

Wynonna knows Waverly's going to be embarrassed about this. She tries to make it easier.

"It's okay, babe," she says, "I was the same my first time. Worse. At least you still have all your clothes on."

Waverly breaks into a fit of giggles and slumps against Wynonna when she'd done. Wynonna feels more that sees a shed ahead of them, and helps them down against it.

"Feel a bit better?"

Waverly nods.

"Thanks, I'm just... Feel _bad_."

"Wait until tomorrow, kid," Wynonna puts her arm around Waverly and pulls her close. The alcohol makes them both feel warm but they aren't, not actually. If they were drunk enough they could get hypothermia out there and not even know it.

Waverly makes a sleepy, pleased sound and turns her face into Wynonna's shoulder. Part of her, a selfish part, hopes that Waverly isn't really falling asleep yet. The night is still young, in Wynonna hours anyway, and she wants to get back to the party.

Wynonna is about three times more sober than Waverly, but still not nearly sober enough to make good decisions. She isn't responsible at the best of times. She doesn't know the first thing about taking care of a hopeless drunk teenager.

"Just... have you had water? I'll go get water." Wynonna makes to leave, but Waverly grabs her by the wrist. Her grip is weak, sloppy, but keeps Wynonna pinned.

"Don't go. Stay, this is nice." Waverly pats the frosty ground next to her like it’s a cushion, "It's nice."

Wynonna obeys, and takes her seat. She returns her arm to its position around Waverly.

"I miss you. I never see you," Waverly mutters.

 _Emotionally vulnerable drunk,_ Wynonna thinks.

"You do stuff, and, and it's so stupid, Wynonna. You make me so angry. “Waverly doesn't sound it as she snuggles in even closer. “I just want to... Grab you... Shake. Snap out of it."

Wynonna wishes she could say that hurt, but read pain requires surprise and she’s not surprised.

This is not nearly how she saw her night going.

Drinking was pointless if you weren't getting drunk, and being drunk was pointless if you weren't having fun. It's also the last time she plans on seeing a lot of these people, and what better time than that to hook up with the remaining few she hasn't gotten of her list. She shaved for this.

"Will you be ok if I go back?" She asks. Waverly doesn't answer, and even Wynonna can't convince herself that that means she's okay. She sighs and watches it condense it front of her face.

Wynonna pulls her legs in closer to her chest and pulls Waverly in closer to her side.

"You really need to learn how to drink."

"You're really pretty."

Waverly raises two eyebrows. Of all the times she's heard that tonight, in all its more explicit incarnations, that’s the least expected.

"You too," Wynonna smile-says. Waverly shakes her head.

"No, I look like a baby," she says, and lifts one hand higher, touches the side of Wynonna's face. She traces two fingers down her cheekbone and rests one just under it.

 "You're all sharp."

"You'll get there."

"No," Waverly says, "I won't."

She closes both eyes, her lips just apart. Her breaths are so shallows that for a second Wynonna panics; she can't see Waverly breathing. Surely she would've noticed if she'd drank enough to kill her? But then Waverly blinks like a cat coming back from sleep, and her pupils are the wrong size for that level of darkness, and they're aimed right at Wynonna's lips.

Waverly could never do it if she wasn't wasted. But she is, and consequences don't seem really, and nothing really seems real, so she leans in.

Wynonna knows what's happening three second before it happens. She has time to move away. She doesn't.

Wynonna isn't even sure if this counts as kissing Waverly; there are too many layers of removal. She knows the Chap Stick Waverly uses, and there isn't a single trace of it and her taste. Wynonna can't taste anything, actually; there is alcohol but she's so saturated in it herself that it might as well be one part per million for all she can smell it.

It's just light touching, like what could be passed off as normal. Could be, except Wynonna and Waverly never kiss goodbye, hardly even touch. They were never very tactile, even before... before. Even less after. Wynonna hardly even hugged her on her birthday, so this was so wildly out of character. It couldn't be normal.

Waverly pulls back. Laughs. Pushed in again. Wynonna is more ready this time, and she puckers the second before the contact. Waverly's nose bumps into hers, and the points of contact are all wrong. Waverly isn't good at it.

Wynonna isn't sure if it's because she's drunk or because this is her first kiss.

She's not about to critique her technique, though.

Waverly opens her lips just like a bit, and Wynonna surges into it. She knows how to kiss. She's had plenty experience. The second her tongue wets Waverly's lower lips, something loud pops in the bonfire. They both jump away, and something like a frightened cheer comes over the crowd. Wynonna waits three seconds to see if there's going to be an explosion, and then another three to see if anyone is looking in their direction. They all seem even more distracted than before, and the darkness is doing a fair enough job of hiding them, but... better safe than sorry. Wynonna takes Waverly's hand, the contact feeling like it means just a bit too much, and tries the door to the shed. It's unlocked and comes open with just a bit of force.

She sets Waverly down against the wall and slides down next to her again. They start kissing before either of them is stable. Waverly grabs at her thick jacket like she's trying to make it fit both of them, hand sliding inside and around the back, trapped between Wynonna and the fabric.

The sky sounds sound and empty all at once. The bonfire is roaring - and the people around it - but it all dissipates into the vacuum. You could see for miles across the plains, but it feels like you could only hear for meters.

One of Waverly's hands goes for the top button on Wynonna's flannel. It's a bad idea for so many reasons, not the least of which is the risk of hypothermia that comes with undressing. Wynonna lets her undo it anyway. Her hand feels icy when she says it flat on Wynonna's chest, just below her neck. Wynonna swears it's enough too cool down her blush, that if Waverly took her hand away there'd be a hand shaped patch of normal coloured skin in the red.

Wynonna listens carefully. No footsteps approaching. No sirens in the distance coming to break up the party. They're alone. No one is coming in.

Her hand drifts down the front of Waverly's shirt, stops at the button of her jeans. She fiddles with it for a second before she gets it undone. Waverly undoes the second button on her flannels, pulls the fabric apart so her bra starts showing. Wynonna's glad she dressed to get laid; it's black and detail and matches her underwear - not that Waverly is in the mindset to fully appreciate it - but it makes her feel more confident.

The hand at Waverly's jeans gets through the button and flattens out at the waistband. She presses her hand, wrist pointing up and out, below Waverly's navel. She starts sliding it down. This is _so_ not what she expected to happen tonight.

Wynonna's fingers tips reach just inside her before Waverly panics. Suddenly her mouth is gone, and the cold heavy presence of her hand is gone, and Wynonna is in pain. There's a tight grip around her wrist and tension running all the way up her arm, and she screams.

"Jesus, fuck!" Wynonna pulls her hand away like she's been burned, and the movement is much more difficult than it should reasonably be. When her hand is still, she realises it's not responding to her the way it should. She can't move her fingers, or bend her wrist. Waverly backs up from her, and she lifts her arm up with her good hand, keeps it close to her chest.

"What the fuck, Waves, I think it's broken-" Wynonna hasn't been in this much pain - physical pain - for a long time. She's broken bones before, but somehow the cold makes it that much worse, that much sharper. She didn't hear the crack, but she felt it, like crunching ice in her mouth.

Wynonna can already tell it's bad. Her wrist is limp and she can hear something clicking that is not supposed to click.

"Ah, fuck, Waverly, what'd you-"

Wynonna hadn't known Waverly was nearly that strong, or that she was nearly as fragile. It's not like she brought a brick down on Wynonna's hand, or anything. She just tensed too hard, twisted her hips too harshly. She's almost as panicked as Wynonna is.

"I'll... call an ambulance," Waverly says. She starts feeling her pockets to find her phone.

"No!" The sure force of need helps Wynonna push through the pain to get to her feet, "No ambulance."

Wynonna has been in hospital enough. Not the mention, the fact of the party would mean the police getting involved if an ambulance was called, and she'd been involved with the police enough too. There would be questions about how she broke it, questions she wasn't nearly prepared enough to answer. And she'd be the one who ended the party early, and everyone in Purgatory would have yet another reason to hate her.

"I just need to... go home. I'll wrap it."

"You can't drive," Waverly says.

"Even if my hand was good, I still couldn't drive. I don’t have a car."

"I..." Waverly puts her hands out in front of her like she's trying to warms them, then pulls them back. "Ask someone for a ride?"

"I'll walk."

///

Waverly wants to apologise. When she finally makes it back to Gus and Shorty's the next morning, after spinning some lie about a sleepover at Chrissy's house, she's rehearsed her apology twenty times over. She's sorry about breaking her hand. The rest of it... she isn't sure how she feels.

She tries Wynonna's phone first, but gets not answer. She'd hoped not to have to do this in person.

Waverly slings her bag over her shoulder and gets to walking. Wynonna's last apartment isn't far away - nothing is that far away in Purgatory - and Waverly needs to walk to psyche herself up. She gets there and knocks lightly, four times. When there's no answer, she tries again, harder.

"Wynonna," She tries to door handle, but it's locked, "Come on, it's me. How's your hand?"

Nothing through the door.

She tries the neighbours, who tell her everything.

///

The party ended at one am. Wynonna had packed up two suitcases with one hand and skipped town by four. The landlord let Waverly inside Wynonna's apartment because he knew they were related.  Waverly isn’t sure if Wynonna cleared the entire place out or if she just lived like this, with the walls, the everything, so bare.

She misses Wynonna for three months before her absence calcifies, becomes inert. She isn't sure if that's far too long or not nearly long enough.

///

She gets Wynonna’s new number through Gus, but doesn’t use it until November.

> **_Waverly:_ ** _Happy Thanksgiving! Xx_

In Virginia, Wynonna reads over the message again and again, half covered by her motel blanket. She types, erases, retypes. It takes her four days to write back.

> **_Wynonna:_ ** _You too. Keeping out of trouble?_
> 
> **_~~Wynonna:~~ _ ** _~~Now that I’m gone, is trouble keeping out of you?~~ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \+ 3 years.

Wynonna rolls into town - three years later - on a pale blue steed; all-wheel drive and stick shift, not a dent on the thing. Waverly knows almost every truck in town and she doesn’t know this one, so her first reaction is concern when she sees it coming up the drive way to Gus and Curtis’ house. It’s getting late on a Wednesday and Waverly is just about done with her algebra. She leaves the books open and dog eared before she heads down stairs.

She hears Wynonna before she sees her, already talking – arguing – with Gus and Curtis. She can’t make out the words, but she gets the general gist of it. She creaks a step hard on the way down, and the talking stops.

“Waverly,” Gus says, turning up from the front door. And then, unpleasantly, “Look who’s here.”

She steps aside to reveal Wynonna. Her hair’s longer. Her whole face looks a bit longer, but that might just be the weight loss.

“Hey,” Wynonna speaks first, and she sounds underwater.

“Hi.” Waverly finished coming down the stairs. She stops just a few feet away from Waverly. She can see her in more detail now; the texture of her clothes. Wynonna’s wearing boots that could be leather or pleather, she isn’t sure. Waverly’s wearing ankle socks.

“You’ve grown.”

She has. Puberty hit her hard and mercilessly over summer, and everyone at school had noticed. Boys had _definitely_ noticed. Wynonna, too, apparently.

“So’ve you.”

Wynonna nods; the small talk has hit a dead end. She skips ahead.

“I was thinking I could take Waverly out tonight,” Wynonna points back, through the wall, in the direction of her truck

“It’s a school night,” Gus says. Waverly shifts her feet, the socks gliding.

“Can you drive, now?” Curtis says.

“Drove here.”

He nods.

“Don’t be too long.” He pats Wynonna on the shoulder. Gus turns and leaves for the kitchen and Gus follows. Wynonna and Waverly are alone in the entry way.

Waverly remembers what happened the last time they were alone, and she can’t stop the thought from running through her brain. She wonders if Wynonna’s having the same problem.

“So,” Wynonna says, “Shoes?”

“Oh!” Waverly snaps into action. She takes the stairs two at a time while Wynonna watches her, and searches her room for the Converse she’d kicked off when she came home from school that day. She finds them half hidden under a blanket, and returns with them in hand, sheepish.

Wynonna gets the door for her. The entry is a bit narrowed than what’s strictly regulated, and Waverly has to make five different points of contact to get past. She’d be worried about getting dirt on her socks but it’s all covered in snow, so her only concern is getting wet.

The truck is nicer up close. The interior is black and sleek, and there’s actually a port for an AUX cord. Waverly doesn't know where she got the money for it and she isn't sure she wants to know. The arrests are public knowledge but the details are sealed. She’s sure the Bandidos are involved, somehow.

“You set?” Wynonna asks, “Then let’s go.”

Waverly puts her shoes on while they drive. She bends to lace them up, and feels the car swerve just a little before she comes back up again.

“Whoa, Wynonna. Eyes on the road.”

Waverly notices how Wynonna holds the wheel. It’s odd. She never got her hand professional looked at, so it healed wrong. Her one arm is just a little longer, now, and it clicks on certain movements. She can’t do a chin up with good form.

She doesn’t ask where they’re going. She doesn’t care, really, just that she’d with Wynonna. Seeing her in the flesh for the first time in so long. Waverly starts to get an idea when they start on an incline. As far as she remembers, this road leads to a place people call the Panorama because of its view. On weekends, kids come up here to get high or have sex in their cars. Waverly’s never been. She’s never had anyone to go with.

Wynonna pulled the car to a dead stop just a few yards away from the barrier, and then the hundred foot drop below that. The lights in Purgatory could have been impressive; if she hadn’t seen New York in the time she was gone.

“How’s your hand?” Waverly says. It’s a stupid, clumsy start to a conversation, but it’s what she would’ve said first three years ago, if Wynonna hadn’t packed up and left.

Wynonna rolls it around the joint a bit to demonstrate.

“Hurt like a bitch for a while.”

“Sorry,” Waverly says.

Wynonna stills her wrist, drapes it over the steering wheel. She pulls the handbrake up with her good hand.

“I deserved it.”

Waverly doesn’t have an answer for that. But she has so many questions.

“You didn’t have to run.” Waverly says.

“I did,” Wynonna wants a cigarette, but she refuses to smoke in her new truck; she knows she’ll never get the smell out again.

“No. We could’ve worked through it, we could’ve-“

“I don’t want to talk about this, Waverly.” Wynonna sounds angrier than she’d meant to, and it takes Waverly by surprise. It takes her a few seconds to regroup.

“Why’d you bring me out here, then?” Waverly leans forward and smirks like it’s a checkmate. Wynonna sighs. It _is_.

“I’m so _sorry_ , Waverly,” Wynonna starts crying before the end of the sentence, and it’s a surprise to even her.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s okay.” Waverly undoes her seat belt and leaves over so she can touch Wynonna with both hands. “I’m sorry. I broke your hand. You’re okay, please don’t cry.”

It’s embarrassing, to be crying. Wynonna gets angry at herself, but the anger just makes her cry more, but Waverly can’t tell the difference between the frustration and the sadness and so pities her more and more. It’s a vicious cycle.

“I was drunk, too, you know. Not as much as you but I didn’t... I wouldn’t have done-“

“I know, I know,” Waverly tucks a strand of hair behind Wynonna’s ear to stop it from getting stuck to her face. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

That cuts through the crying well enough. Wynonna snorts, changes demeanour entirely.

“I almost _raped_ you, Wave.”

“No you didn’t.”

“You were thirteen. And drunk.”

Waverly wants to comfort her, but those are fairly solid points.

“You didn’t though.”

“Yeah, because you fucking broke my hand.”

“I just panicked,” Waverly said, “I didn’t hate it. I was into it, I just- I freaked out. I didn’t mean to-

“You were right to.”

Waverly watches her. Wynonna looks forward, both hands over the wheel. There’s heat coming off the entire that keeps the windows from fogging up, but it won’t last long. Waverly wishes she was drunk again, that’d make this so much easier.

“I’m sixteen now,” she says. Waverly reaches over and turns on the radio. She needs something more than the silence if she’s going to get through it. Teenage Dream, the song of the summer, comes through the airwaves. Wynonna, who normally hates Top 40 stuff, doesn’t even try to change it.

“I’m sixteen now,” she says again, “And sober.”

It takes Wynonna three times to understand what she’s implying.

_I know you get me, so I let my walls come down, down._

“Waverly, that’s not-“

“I missed you so much. I missed you. All I wanted was for you to come back.”

Wynonna lets out a breathe she didn't realise she'd been holding. "I missed you too."

Waverly moved across, over the gears. She blocks out the moon and Wynonna is blind for a second, unable to orient herself. Waverly moves too fast to stop, and when she rests she's holding herself over Wynonna in the driver’s seat. Wynonna double checks that the handbrake is secure, that they're not about to accidentally roll forward and off a cliff.

Maybe they are.

"Show me, show me you missed me."

Waverly kisses her neck first because that somehow, ridiculously, feels safer than going for the lips. Her dress rides up a few inches as she moves.

"Waves, what are you-"

"Shh." Waverly cuts her off. Wynonna knows exactly what.

"I'm a virgin," Waverly says.

"I know," Wynonna hadn't expected anything else. Waverly was still too protected, too... innocent. Not to mention Curtis and his shotgun was a fairly major deterrent.

Wynonna imagines them, back at the homestead, watching TV. She'd promised to get Waverly home safe, it was a weeknight, she still had homework to finish, she'd promised-

"I'm not," Wynonna says, "Does that bother you?"

Waverly shakes her head, "No, I know. That's alright.”

_Let's go all the way tonight. No regrets, just love._

She hovers over Wynonna’s lap, with a knee on either side of her thighs. Her legs are just open enough, and Wynonna moves her hand there. Waverly looks over Wynonna’s shoulder, eyes on the road, on watch duty. She’s ready to break away if she needs too, always calculating. How long it would take to pull away, to get dressed, to start the car and drive. If head lights appeared just then, would they be fast enough to get away with it?

Wynonna’s fingers slip inside of her, and Waverly keeps waiting for the lights. She can’t relax, and it’s throwing Wynonna off.

“Is that good?” It’s the first Wynonna has spoken in long moments. Waverly nods, stops, shakes her head.

“Sorry, I just-“

“Here,” Wynonna raises her leg and hikes Waverly’s dress up higher. She grabs her by the thigh and positions her, “Grind on my thigh.”

Wynonna doesn’t offer to take her jeans off, so Waverly’s stuck grinding on denim. It’s a bit rough, and it’d hurt if she weren’t wet. It still hurts, a bit.

“Are you getting anything from this?” Waverly asks.

“Yeah,” Wynonna wraps one hand around the back of Waverly’s neck, feels the baby hairs there. “I get to watch you.”

Waverly bites her bottom lip. It isn’t working. The angle isn’t right, couldn’t be right, not with the way they’re all pushed up in the cab, fogging up the windows. Wynonna catches on and tries to help, keeping two fingers steady for Waverly to rub her clit on. _That’s better._

Neither of Wynonna’s hands are free but both of Waverly’s are. She feels like it’s her responsibility to do something, but she can’t think of anything sexy so she just grabs at the back of Wynonna’s jacket. Wynonna seems to like it.

“Tell me something,” Waverly says.

“What, baby?”

The baby isn’t sweet; it’s impersonal. Like shorthand. Like Wynonna doesn’t remember her name, or doesn’t care to use it.

“About when you were gone.”

Wynonna nods before she can decide to agree. Her brain diverges onto two wildly different tracks; one working to get her sister off, the other searching for fun anecdotes from the road.

“In Maine,” she starts, “I was playing darts-“

Waverly’s next moan is displeased.

“No, tell me something. Something that’ll,” Waverly’s choking over the last syllables, and needs to stop her grind for a second to finish, “Something that’ll get me off.”

"I met this guy at a bar. Gorgeous. He had these eyes, like-"

Waverly shakes her head again.

"No, not about a guy." Waverly says.

"I haven't..." Wynonna licks her lips; she knows Waverly had an image of her. She can only imagine what Waverly thinks she's been up to during the years she was gone. She's not sure how much of that she wants to shatter. "There haven't been a lot of girls, Waves."

Waverly is disappointed for only a second, until she brings her hips down again, and shudders.

"Then tell me about you."

Wynonna has to think for a minute to gather her meaning.

"Oh," she says, "Oh, okay." She isn't sure why she's so embarrassed about this. Waverly is dripping all over her hand, taking her inside her body, and Wynonna still doesn't feel comfortable sharing these dirty details. She'll try, anyway. For Waverly's benefit.

All of this is for Waverly’s benefit.

"I thought about you," It's not the sexiest place to start. Sex is always sexier without love and that... that's a bit closer to romantic than either of them wanted to acknowledge, "When I got myself off, I thought about you. If you hadn't stopped me. If I hadn't left. I tried to imagine what you'd looked like."

When she'd gone, Wynonna hadn't brought a single photo along, and she hadn't seen a new picture of Waverly between then and now. All she had were her memories, and her last memory of Waverly had her frightened and panting in a shed, while a fire taller than a house burned outside. She looked so different. _So_ different, so much _better_.

It made Wynonna feel like. Like she’d planted the seeds years ago and was coming back to reap them now.

“I never thought you’d look so…” _fuckable._ “Gorgeous”

It’s a miracle neither of them has accidentally hit the horn yet.

Wynonna starts to move her fingers more, deeper. Waverly’s face scrunches up half way to pain, and she withdraws completely.

“No, wait, back in. It’s good.”

Wynonna obliges.

_You make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream._

Wynonna can’t trust herself with this. All Waverly’s vulnerabilities – emotional, sexual – are just there, and Wynonna can’t keep her filthy hands off of it. Off of her.

Waverly should be doing this with someone else, in someone else’s truck. Some boy. Or not a boy, even, it doesn’t matter. But it shouldn’t be her. Even if he was just in it for the sex, even if he dropped her the second she put out, it’d still be better. Wynonna doesn’t want to wish Waverly heartbreak, but it’s the better alternative to this. This is just heartbreak, multiplied. This has no possible good ending.

“Are you close?”

She is. She’s rocking her hips back and forth, greedy for the contact, and Wynonna is solid and there and unflinching. “Need more.” She says. Wynonna pushes in deeper, curls her fingers. Waverly’s breathe is coming out harsh and in beats.

_My heart stops, when you look at me._

“You’re so hot, Waverly, you look so good. Cum, baby, I want you to cum.”

“I’m gon- I’m gonna,”all the coiled up pleasure in her stomach unfurls all at once, and Waverly closes her eyes tight. Wynonna surges forward and kisses her through it, swallowing any of the sounds she makes. Waverly squeezes down on Wynonna’s fingers for the better part of a minute. Wynonna doesn’t stop moving, tries to help her ride it out as long as she can. When she’s finished, Waverly realises how much tension she was holding in her body, and releases it.

“ _Fuck_ , babygirl,” Wynonna pulls her hand back and it’s all covered in slick, she’s not sure she can grip the wheel right. Her jeans are already ruined so she wipes her hand down on the denim.

_Just one touch, now baby I believe, this is real._

Waverly feels all messy and a bit sore. She can’t decide if she likes it or not. Four second after her orgasm finishes, and she’s already falling down so fast. It’s amazing, the turn around, how quick arousal turns to disgust or boredom after she cums. She’s not interested in sex anymore, but Wynonna… Wynonna hasn’t cum yet, and the whites of her eyes look black. She’s not sure if Wynonna will ask her to do anything, if she’d do it if she did.

Wynonna breaks her gaze away. With one hand, she pushed on Waverly’s hip. She takes the hint and shifts back to the passenger side. She fixes her underwear back into place.

_So take a chance and don't ever look back, don’t ever look back._

“Are you staying?” Waverly asks.

Wynonna starts the car.

///

At school the next day, Waverly wants to tell _someone_ , but this is the stickiest secret she's ever had, the one she has to keep closest to her chest. She tells her friends a half sanitized version: everything is the same - the car, the place, the time - everything but the person. She invents a boy named Michael and gives him dark hair, dark eyes, long fingers. She rips the memory of Wynonna apart and drapes it over him, and talks about him like she’s in love.

She’s the first of all of them to lose her virginity, and when she tells them the dirty details they all lean in and giggle like they’re getting away with something.

They don’t know anything.

///

Wynonna skips town again four days later. She leaves her truck parked outside Gus and Curtis’ house, with a note tucked under the windshield wiper.

_Learn to drive. Consider this incentive._

///

When her mystery man doesn't materialise in time for junior prom, all her friends feel sorry for her getting dumped. Champ swoops in just in time, offering more than asking, to go with her. How nice of him. How lucky for her.

///

> **Waverly:** btw im seeing Champ now.
> 
> **Wynonna:** Hardy?
> 
> **Waverly:** yeah, we’re going to prom
> 
> **Wynonna:** he’s an idiot.
> 
> **Waverly:** he’s nice
> 
> **Wynonna:** he doesn’t deserve you.
> 
> **~~Wynonna:~~ ** ~~youre mine youre mine youre mine~~

///

She has sex with Champ, also, in the cab of that same truck. It's the night after their six month anniversary and Waverly can't really put it off anymore. She tells Champ that he's her first, and he tells her that she's his first, too. They're both lying. The condoms Champ has are the wrong size and it takes him three tries to get it on. Waverly doesn't say anything, doesn't offer to help. She imagines that this truck still belongs to Wynonna, that Wynonna is still the driver. It's over in a few minutes.

He's not as good as Wynonna. She doesn't know if that's a gay thing, or a Wynonna thing. She decides not to think about it too much, and rights her skirt after he finishes. She doesn't get off. He kisses her and says how much he loves her, how pretty she is; and for all his failings, Waverly knows he means it. He's nice. He's honest about what he is. He's a stereotype, and there's comfort in that. There are other boys who've shown interest in her, everyone from artists to punks to nerdy types who think she isn't interested in them because they're nerdy. None of them realise she's not interested because they're assholes.

Champ is a product of the town. He's not progressive by any means, but it's in a naive sort of way. When Waverly gets talking about feminism, he just smiles and says something about how smart she is, and contributes nothing. It's better than she gets from the boys who try to argue with her about 'egalitarianism'. Much better.

He’s a good person, at the core. All the rest isn’t even his fault.

Somewhere along the way, Waverly starts to believe it’s _her_ who doesn’t deserve _him_.

///

The truck never really feels like hers. Wynonna is so potent that everything she touches is marked forever, and Waverly can’t get the scent out. Whenever she drives she feels a ghost in the passenger side, phantom ache between her legs.

She sells it for half what it’s worth.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im the king of wildy varying chapter length. honestly none of this is edited and im probably going to edit this when its finished and reupload with like... only 3 chapters than are each about 8k words instead of smaller ones of varying length.

She’s the Prom Queen and he’s her King; it’s just a perfect fucking picture. Literally. Gus and Curtis take photos like it’s going of fashion. Against his truck, in the stairwell, during the day and during sundown and in the manufactured darkness of the barn. It’s a whole production.

The party is nice enough, but the after party is where it’s at. The graduating class all pooled their money together and rented out a warehouse, bought drinks. Waverly hasn’t been to a party like this since… well, since. At least it’s not so goddamn cold this time. At least they’re inside.

Champ drinks more than he should under the encouragement of ‘his boys’. Waverly doesn’t have the energy to keep up with the harder drinks, and she doesn’t feel like pretending she enjoys the taste of beer. They bow out, together, at about two am. Champ rented a hotel room for the both of them. He gets clapped on the back as they leave.

After sex, Champ passes out quickly and completely. Waverly lies on her back, staring at the ceiling, for an hour.

///

Her phone wakes her up. She reaches for it out of reflex, figuring it’s the alarm at first, but no, she hasn’t needed to use an alarm for years.

It’s a call. The brightness hurts her eyes as she lifts the phone to check the name.

> **WYNONNA.**

Waverly sits up and out of the bed, leaving Champ in his own sweat and body heat. She waits until she’s in the bathroom to answer it.

“Wynonna?”

“Waves,” there’s a lot of background noise; Wynonna’s at a party.

“Jesus, Wy, it’s…“ Waverly lifts the phone away to check, “Three o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh, shit,” Wynonna laughs, “Sorry, its 11 o’clock here.”

“Here?” Waverly asks. Wynonna was in California, last she knew. “Where the hell are you?”

“Overseas,” Wynonna says, “So this is a fucking expensive call to make.”

“Why are you calling?” Waverly asks. It’s been months since she’s heard her voice. Years, maybe. They text sometimes, but it’s not nearly the same thing.

Wynonna breathes heavily on the other side of the line. “You look so _fucking hot.”_

Waverly nearly drops the phone in the sink. She pulls it away for a second to listen for any indication that Champ's waking up. There's nothing. She holds onto the sinks rim.

"This is a phone call, Wynonna. You can't see me."

"Gus sent pictures. You with Champ. I think she was trying to make me feel guilty, you know, for missing it-"

Wynonna pulled the phone away, held it against her temple.

"All it did was make me..." _Jealous. Enraged. Infuriated. I'm stewing in all of it ~~and I'm coming back for you and I'm gonna~~_ ~~-~~ "Horny."

Wynonna is drunk; she sounds drunk, but that might just be how she sounds, now. "You said it's eleven." Waverly thinks back to her geography classes, a map of the world divided into sector. "AM or PM?"

"In the morning."

"Jesus, isn't that a bit early to be wasted?"

She can almost hear Wynonna shrug through the line.

"Hey, day drinking is cool here."

Waverly figures that puts Wynonna somewhere in line with Britain, maybe a bit more East. She'll look up the phone call's area code later. Gus hadn't mentioned anything about Wynonna going overseas. Did she even know?

"You look perfect, baby girl," It's the kind of compliment that, were it not for the context, could have actually been nice.

"And that dress..."

Waverly's naked now, crossing one arm over herself even though no one can see her.

"Why are you still with him?"

"He's a good guy."

"I never got that, why... You could have anyone. Anything."

"He's a good guy," Waverly said, "And he loves me."

"Do you love him?"

Wynonna waits for the answer. Gets ready for it to kill her.

Waverly sighs.

"He's a good guy."

"Does you make you cum?"

" _Wynonna_!"

That was almost too loud. Waverly heart jumps as she listens again... that must've woken someone. The neighbours, even.

"You deserve someone who's good like that. You look so good when you get off. Has he even ever seen you get off? Were you faking?"

Waverly can't do this. She knows what Wynonna wants, but she's not about to have phone sex while her boyfriend is passed out in the other room. She wouldn't know how to, even if she wanted to.

She _does_ want to.

She wishes she'd drunk more.

"I wanna go down on you," Wynonna says.

Waverly's breathes hitches, and her protest just comes out as a whimper.

"I'm good now, I've had practice. However long it took. I'd work you over with my mouth until you were so messy. I'd make you feel so good, baby."

"Champ's still-"

"Fuck Champ," the mention of him throws off her beat. Wynonna takes another sip of her drink. She has to stay just this drunk, has to keep herself just this crazy. Any more or any less and she can't go through with it, "I'd make you forget all about him. Lay you down on my bed and open you up."

"Stop," Waverly says, "I'll hang up. I _will_."

Wynonna is quiet.

"You can't do this. You can't just call after a year and-" Waverly rubs the bridge of her nose, "Not on the _phone_ , Wynonna."

"Not on the..." Waverly waits for the gears in Wynonna's head to click into place. It's quiet; there's not a sound in the hotel room, the closest noise is on the street and it's only periodic. When Wynonna speaks again, Waverly can hear the tears in her voice. "I miss you so much."

"Come back, then," Waverly says, "You can come back. There's nothing stopping you."

"I can't, Waves, everyone hates me. You should hate me."

"I don't. It doesn't matter," she can't deny that everyone hates her. A lie to placate her like that would do much more harm than good.  Waverly makes her voice sweet. It's manipulative, maybe. She doesn't care. "Don't you wanna see me?"

"You know I do."

"So?"

" _So_. There's a reason I left."

Waverly turns the tap on and plugs the sink. She lets it fill up, let's the sound of the water running fill the bathroom. Even if Champ wakes, he won't hear what she's saying.

"Come back and you can have sex with me." Waverly bites her bottom lips, drag her foot across the tile while she waits for the response. It's a risky thing to say.

"That's... that's the reason I left."

Waverly almost hangs up then. They're going in circles.

"Decide what you want," she shuts the tap off, pulls out the plug and watches the water drain, "And do something about it."

"Waverly, I-"

Waverly hangs up.

///

Booking a ticket on such short notice is fucking expensive, and she has to sit in the middle of the row in economy class, but Wynonna gets there three days later. She lands at the nearest airport, almost three hours out from the city limits, and realises she has no plans for anyone to pick her up. It's only 12am; Waverly would still be in school. Gus and Curtis both work. They don't have time, and this time around, she doesn't have a car.

Bus it is. Wynonna's glad she didn't bring too much baggage along.

The homestead is empty when she gets there. She knocks and waits for a a half hour before she decides to let herself in. She still knows where they keep the spare key hidden.

Going through the house feels a little bit like archaeology. Inspecting relics, trying to piece together what's happened. She's been out of Waverly's life for so long, out of her real life, and all she's had are bits and pieces amended onto an out of date image. She images Waverly in the kitchen - what does she eat? What food does she hate? Does she cook? - And feels an ache somewhere below her lungs for an alternate timeline. In one world, they stayed together, had dinners, were a family. In one world, Wynonna has a seat at the table.

Curtis comes home first and invites her to stay at the homestead with them for however long she's here. Gus isn't too pleased with it, but she also really doesn't want to make a scene, so she keeps her mouth shut on the matter. Wynonna tosses her bags down next to a couch in the living room, and pulls out her phone. She doesn't have much to say to either of them. Certainly nothing that wouldn't disappoint them further. She plays Temple

Run for about half an hour until she hears the door creak open. Waverly's home.

Gus and Curtis get the door first. She can hear them trying to stall her, or trying to prepare her, maybe. Waverly muscles her way past them to see what they're so obviously trying to hide.

"You actually came," is the first thing she says. She wonders how that much sounds, out of context. Gus and Curtis must be confused by how utterly un-shocked Waverly seems.

"I did," Wynonna says. Waverly had her hair put back in a single loose, thick braid. The shirt she's wearing cuts off just before her navel, and Wynonna has to force a mantra to stop herself from looking.

It's hard to talk to Waverly when Gus and Curtis are still there. The most pressing matters, the whole reason she came back, they can't discuss yet. It's a minefield of half metaphors and pleasantries. Wynonna isn't looking forward to dinner.

///

Wynonna looks at her and thinks about sex, but she’ll never ask for it. She used up all her bravado getting on that plane.

Waverly waits until Wynonna is half way through a six pack - just loose enough to let Waverly join her – and convinces her to switch to something harder. The whiskey is way too much for her, and when Waverly chokes on it and spits it out, Wynonna laughs.

Gus and Curtis are both out of the house. It's the first time they've been alone together since she arrived, the first time in three years. And before that, it'd been three years too. This only seems to happen at extreme intervals, so much contact, so much heat, and then nothing for years. Waverly wonders how long it'll be this time.

"Think this is a bit too hard for you, kiddo," Wynonna takes the bottle away from her, "Besides, you need to sober up before Gus and Curtis get back. They already think I'm the worst influence on God's green earth. Don't need to prove them right."

"I'm an adult. I can make my own decisions. They can't blame you for that," Waverly reaches for the bottle. It's much stronger than what she's had before, and somehow that actually makes it more palatable. Waverly finds that she doesn't mind the taste.

"Ah, but they can." Wynonna's arms and longer, and she's stronger. Waverly's got no chance of getting it, unless Wynonna offers it to her.

Waverly notices the label for the first time. She hadn't cared to check before her first sip, but the way Wynonna held it exposed the full print.

"That's familiar," Waverly says, "...did-"

"Daddy used to drink it, yeah."

Wynonna sets the bottle down like it's suddenly too heavy to hold. Waverly doesn't try to grab it.

It's a painful reminder - who they are, who their father is. The heritage that makes all of this so much more complicated. Wynonna wants to reach for the bottle again but they've both been staring at it too long, and taking another sip would be making it statement right now.

Waverly decides she doesn't need the drink. Wynonna's right, anyway; Gus and Curtis wouldn't be happy if they found out she'd been drinking. It wouldn't play well for Wynonna, either.

The sun is just starting to go down and there's a coyote screaming somewhere out in the wilds. The heating is on and for now, she's safe. They're safe in here. Waverly tells herself that again and again, and then she puts a hand on the far side of Wynonna's face in a motion that can only mean one thing.

"I promised you something," she says, "If you came back."

"You don't have to," Wynonna says. It's an out she has to give. She hopes Waverly doesn't take it.

"I promised you _sex_ ," Waverly turns Wynonna's face, makes their eyes lock, "Don't make a liar out of me."

Wynonna's eyes go to her lips but they're moving too fast for her to get a clear view. The second their lips touch, Wynonna's eyes close, and her hands go to Waverly's hips. Waverly is smaller and uses it to her advantage; she clambers over the couch and holds herself over Wynonna, making use of all that agility and not breaking their lips apart once.

"When are they coming back?" Wynonna asks.

"We have enough time."

"When?"

"Two hours."

“Let’s go upstairs,” Wynonna says. She leaves the bottle on the coffee table.

///

She hasn’t ever actually been _inside_ Waverly’s room. Odd, given that she’s _been inside_ Waverly. There are only a few things she recognizes – a blanket, a clock, a few relics of toys – the rest is all new to her. Wynonna takes in the posters on the walls, wonders why Waverly got each one. What the mean to her. If there’s a reason she has the curtains just that way, or if it’s just how they are.

Waverly takes her shirt off, tosses it onto the floor.

Her bra is cute, but clearly not meant to seduce. She hadn't been expecting this. Hadn't prepared. Wynonna doesn't mind at all. Waverly puts both her hands behind her back, shifts while Wynonna looks at her. She seems a bit unsteady, and it takes Wynonna way too long to realise that she's nervous.

"You alright?" Wynonna asks. She steps close enough that their chests are almost touching, or would be if they were the same height.

"Y-yeah," Goosebumps raise on Waverly's arms. It might be from the cold. It might not.

"You seem tense."

"Well, yeah."

"We don't have to."

"Shut up, that's not why."

"Why, then?"

Waverly scrunches up her mouth, gestures down at her body.

"Just, you know. Before. You never actually saw me naked."

Wynonna's eyes flick to the left as she recalls the memory.

"Huh. Yeah," she says. Actually, Wynonna doesn't think she can remember ever seeing Waverly naked in her life. She probably did, when they were kids, but she lost a lot of memory from before the attack. Wynonna had idea what she might be repressing. "Your body's perfect," Wynonna traces the back of her hand down Waverly's arm, enjoying the way the soft short hairs tickle just a bit.

"You wanna lie down?" Wynonna asks. Wordless, Waverly backs up until the back of her knees hits the mattress. She sits down with more grace than she has a right to have.

Wynonna shrugs off her jacket, eyes stuck on Waverly. She hangs it over the back of Waverly's desk chairs, notices the algebra text book opened up. Wynonna doesn't understand any of it. Waverly has a page of notes and a pen abandoned next to it.

"AP classes?"

Waverly nods, "Yeah. It's a lot of work but...it's good."

"God, I barely got my GED."

Wynonna resists the urge to check that the door is locked again. It's a long, quiet driveway, and they'd hear anyone coming up with plenty of time to right themselves. Wynonna pushes Waverly's chair in, and kicks unzips the sides of her boots to take them off.

Waverly watches all of this with her hands neatly folded in her lap. Her hands ache to fiddle with something - like the hem on her shirt - but that's already gone. She follows Wynonna's lead and starts to unlace her Converse. No shoes on the bed.

When Waverly looks back up, Wynonna has her fists balled up at her sides. She's just outside of Waverly's circle, looking uncertain. They're circling each other with their eyes, both unsure who's supposed to go first.

"Come here," Waverly pats the space on the bed beside her, and Wynonna follows. The bed shifts and forces them closer together. Wynonna swallows, and Waverly takes one of her hands. For a second, she just holds it in her. Then she lays it flat on her stomach.

"You can touch," Waverly says, "I'm not gonna burn you."

"No?" Wynonna curls just the tips in, and slides down, softly raking across her abdomen, "You _are_ pretty hot."

Waverly starts to laugh and Wynonna swallows it with a kiss. Her hand, still on Waverly's abdomen, changes directions, starts heading up.

"Lay back," Wynonna takes Waverly down with her until they're both on their sides, facing each other. Her hand keep snaking up until it's cupping Waverly's left breast, thumb rolling across in a pleasing motion over where Wynonna figures her nipple must be.

"Wanna take this off?" Wynonna sucks her bottom lip in and when Waverly nods, reached around to undo it. It comes off a bit awkward, and Waverly almost smacks her in the face with her elbow, but they avoid any actual injuries.

As soon as it's off and on the floor, Wynonna stares. Waverly's breasts are perfect, fucking _perfect_ , just like she knew they would be. Wynonna stares for so long that Waverly starts to shrink under it, wants to move an arm over to cover herself. Wynonna grabs her arm, softly but firmly, by the wrist.

"No, please," Wynonna says, "I mean, if you want you can but. Jesus. You must know they're perfect."

Waverly shrugs. Wynonna can't find it in herself to make eye contact.

"Champ doesn't tell you?"

It hurts for Wynonna to mention him, but she feels like it's something she has to do. A tax she has to pay. This has to hurt her, just a little.

"Champ's not much of a talker," Waverly exhales heavily and the motion rolls through her whole body, and Wynonna feels it in her hand. "But he has told me I have a great rack."

"Might be the only thing he's right about," Wynonna says. She puts her hand back where it was, cupping Waverly, and starts the same motion. It has a much more noticeable effect. Wynonna can feel her nipple harden under her thumb and flicks her vision between Waverly's chest and Waverly's face. She can't decide which one she likes more.

"Is this good?"

Waverly nods. She closes her eyes while Wynonna continues and then switches to her other nipple, doing the same thing.

"Can I do something else?"

Waverly opens her eyes to find Wynonna's pupils blown way out, lips looking redder than they normally do, full blush across her face.

"G-go ahead."

Wynonna dips her head down lower, and Waverly is confused for a second - thinking she's going to kiss her neck - until she feels something wet around her nipple.

"O-oh," she says, and one hand goes to the back of Wynonna's head. Wynonna lips and sucks and bites in alternation, trying to figure out which Waverly likes best. She pulls back with a wet sound, and check's Waverly's face to make sure she likes it. She does. She goes the same to the other one, while using her fingers on the first.

"That's- ah- good," Waverly feels it down in her core. Champ's never done this. When he does take the time for foreplay, it's clumsy. It's not that he doesn't care, it's just that he's not very good at it. She supposes that shouldn't be a surprise; Wynonna's had more experience, and she's more familiar with the equipment. Something like a small, light vibration starts just under her navel and Waverly just knows that she want's Wynonna there. She guides Wynonna's hand down while her mouth is still busy, and Wynonna has no problem taking the hint. She undoes the button on Waverly’s pants with one hand and opens it just wide enough to get her hand in.

She's a little surprised to find that Waverly's shaved - she wasn't last time - but she doesn't want think about whether that was to accommodate Champ's preferences.

"Hang on."

Wynonna stops her movements, ready to withdraw. Waverly is entitled to second thoughts.

"I just, we have time. Not like... the other time. We should, you know. Get undressed."

"Oh, yeah, okay," Wynonna is more relieved that she'd like to admit. She sits up on her knees and lifts her shirt up and off, tossing it to join Waverly's on the floor. Her bra is black, simple. She's more used to people looking at her than Waverly is. She doesn't shy away when Waverly watches. Wynonna undoes her own bra because Waverly doesn't offer to take it off first, and that, too, goes the direction of the floor.

"Need help?" Wynonna points at the undone button on Waverly's pants, "Or am I just that distracting?"

Waverly sits up quickly, almost knocking Wynonna off her balance in the process. The bed isn't that big, and neither of them have a complete range of motion. Waverly's focus is split between watching Wynonna and taking off her own clothes, but she ends up having to look away for half a minute while Wynonna strips. She kicks her short off all the way and when she looks back, Wynonna is already naked.

They lie back down on the bed, and Wynonna slips her fingers under the waistband of Waverly's underwear and starts pulls them down. Waverly's things are pale and thin and utterly unbroken by lines of scars. Wynonna would be jealous if she weren't so turned on.

They peel off and Wynonna can tell by them sticking that Waverly is already wet. When they're off, she puts her fingers back, and confirms it. She tells Waverly as much.

"You're so wet, babygirl. All wet and ready for me."

Waverly nods against her shoulder. Wynonna's saliva is still on her nipples, making them more sensitive to ever cold wind that blows through from the half open windows.

"I've never felt..."

"Never felt what?"

"This... _excited_ ," Waverly breathes it out and on the last syllable, Wynonna slips two fingers inside her. She sees pleasure open up on Waverly's face, first it tightens, then it smoothes out.

"More?" Wynonna pushes in deeper and Waverly helps, pushing her hips into Wynonna's hand. Wynonna's fingers are long and when she's inside she doesn't have trouble reaching what she needs to reach. She curls her fingers up, pushing on Waverly's front wall and pulling down. Waverly shudders.

“Please, Daddy.”

Wynonna freezes. Waverly, too.

“D-daddy?”

“You are _so_ not in a position to judge, Wynonna.” The blur of pleasure is still there in Waverly’s voice, but the way she’d sounded almost lost in it… that was fading fast. There was a bite. An edge.

Wynonna shakes her head.

“No judging,”

Wynonna says. She catches Waverly's eyes, sees that she's still unsure. Wynonna forces herself to pick up the slack for both of them. "Let Daddy make you feel good, baby."

Waverly visibly relaxes.

Wynonna can feel it too. The vice grip around her fingers loosens up just a little, and she can move again, easier. She keeps the motion, stroking her from the side. She aligns the side of her hand to Waverly's clit.

"Grind on me, baby, if you want to."

"Okay, Daddy." Waverly pushes down as best as she can, and Wynonna adjusts her angle so she can make better contact.

"Do you want another finger?"

"Yeah."

Wynonna adds one and stretches all three out inside of her. Not nearly enough to be painful, just enough to give an odd, pleasant feeling.

"Uh- you ah- you got better at this." Waverly says.

"What, you saying I was bad before?"

"Not at all," Waverly smile-gasps through another wave of pleasure, "Just that you're really good now."

Wynonna isn't a good enough person to not let that go to her ego.

"I still have those pants," Wynonna says, "The ones you came all over. Remember?"

Of course she remembers. _Of course_. She'd thought about it every day, revisited that ground so often that she's worn a path to it. Waverly could be asleep for forty years and still remember it when she awoke.

"That was hot..." Waverly sounds a million miles away, and when Wynonna catches her eyes they look distant, glazed over. Not necessarily in the fun way.

"Do you regret it?" The words slip out ebfore Wynonna can stop them, and she wishes she could take them back. Waverly looked surprised, then puzzled. Then... tired.

"God, Wynonna. You have no sense of appropriate timing."

"Yeah, well. I've been told it's charming."

"You don't have to charm me. You already got me into bed."

"Do you, though?"

Waverly rolls a little more onto her back. Wynonna's fingers are still inside her, but they've stopped moving.

"Just _fuck me_." Waverly surges forward, takes control of the action all at once. Her hips are doing most of the movement, and it takes Wynonna's hands a while to catch up. She almost doesn't have the dexterity.

"Can you get off like this?" Wynonna asks.

"Dunno," Waverly says, "I'm close but... every time you stop I lose it."

"What do you need, baby girl? Tell me. I'll do anything. I'll do _anything_."

Wynonna's breathe on her neck feels unnaturally hot.

"On the phone, you said... you said you wanted to... with your mouth."

"I wanted to go down on you."

"Yeah."

"Okay," Wynonna withdraws her fingers. They're coated with Waverly's wetness, and she wipes most of it down on her thighs. What's left she brings up to her mouth and licks. She offers her fingers to Waverly, letting her taste herself. Watching Waverly part her lips, watching them close around her fingers and take her in... Wynonna isn't sure if there's such a thing as a lip kink, but she's fairly certain she has one.

She withdraws her fingers, wet with saliva and other things, and stars to trace them down Waverly's body. Her mouth follows the same trail. Starting at the mouth, kissing down the neck, between her breasts. She pauses at Waverly’s navel to dip her tongue in it for a second and sees how Waverly twitches with it, watches how her muscles move. She's never seen Waverly from the angle before, and it's fascinating as it is arousing. All the lines that define her body are more evident, pronounced by shadow.

Lower, lower, until she gets her mouth where she needs it. Looking up, Waverly is looking at the ceiling. Wynonna can't get eye contact. That's okay. She puts her head down and kisses the high inside of each of her thighs. Then between them.

It's just closed mouth first, just teasing. Waverly tries to bring her hips up, asking for more. Wynonna darts out her tongue and licks down, fully, once.

"God, yes, Daddy."

Wynonna repeats the motions, goes harder each time. One of Waverly's hands works it's way into her hair, buries between her locks. Wynonna doesn't even need the encouragement, but she laps it up. She pays attention to Waverly's clit - sucks and bites at it through her lips so it doesn't hurt - and Waverly is coming undone fast. She slides one hands around from under Waverly's leg and adds her fingers in, pushing inside of her while her mouth is still working.

"Oh god, I'm so close, I'm-"

Wynonna pulls her mouth away and Waverly whines.

"Cum, baby. Cum for Daddy."

Wynonna gets Waverly to nod before she puts her head back down. She's moving with a singular goal; the get Waverly off. None of the motions are hesitant, or controlled, even. It's all full pressure, full contact, there's no need for them to be quiet, no need to restrict movement, no need to be quiet, the house is empty, no-one can hear for miles and they're fine and Waverly moans so loud that she cums that Wynonna feels _embarrassed_ by just how lewd it is.

She pulls her face up, shiny and sticky, and kisses her way back up. Waverly, passive, lets herself be kissed. She's tired. She's happy to just lie there. The bed is messed up, pillows and extra blankets all cast on the floor.

Wynonna doesn’t ask her to reciprocate.

“I’m gonna go get a beer,” Wynonna says. She slips her shirt back on, only her shirt, and leaves Waverly alone.

///

"Is that what this is about?" Wynonna takes a deep sip from the half empty can. Waverly hasn't gotten fully redressed; her pants are back on but she got distracted half way through, so her shirt's still lying on the floor somewhere. Waverly makes a tired _huh?_ Noise.

"The daddy thing," Wynonna explains, "Is that why we're... you miss daddy, is that it? And this is... this is because of that?"

Waverly forces herself to sit up. Apparently this is a conversation Wynonna is intent on having, no matter how much she'd like to just lay and rest with her.

"No, Wynonna," she says, "It's not that deep. I just like it."

"You just..." Wynonna waves a hand in the air between the two of them, "... like it?"

Waverly shrugs.

"I think it's hot. It's not that deep."

Waverly grabs Wynonna's beer and takes a sip from it. She cringes a bit at the taste. Every single time she tries beer, she convinces herself that it can't be that bad. That she'd imagined it last time, or that it was just the brand. Every single time, she'd wrong.

"Why? Do you want me to stop?"

Wynonna stops tapping on Waverly's thigh. She hadn't even noticed she'd been doing it."

"...no."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

Wynonna throws her neck back, chuckles in the direction of the ceiling.

"Does it make _me_ uncomfortable?"

Waverly nods, sheepish.

" _Jesus._ "

///


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine an alternate universe where i actually edit this and it isnt just Entirely fucking full of typos and also the chapters area remotely similar length? it's just not realistic. anyway thanks for bearing through this; once the first draft is done i will go back and edit and reupload a better version with better seperated chapters.   
> also this chapter is long as fuck lmao good luck

Waverly's expertise at scheduling - that she'd developed because of her AP classes - becomes handy in a way she hadn't ever anticipated. She and Wynonna track out the movements for everyone who comes and goes to the house, and work out exactly when and where they can have sex. Gus is reliable, most of the time. Curtis is harder. Waverly's bedroom door lock breaks one night and they decide that the homestead is just too risky a place.

Wynonna's the one who suggests borrowing Curtis' truck. It's weird; Waverly notes the irony in here trying to find times and places to have sex with her sister, but drawing the line at doing it in her uncle's truck. Wynonna convinces her. With tongue.

When she offers to pick Waverly up from school, she tries to play it off like it's a chore that she's just doing to keep them happy. Gus and Curtis both seem happy with it, especially since the Winter is setting in and they don't like the idea of Waverly getting caught out in a snow storm.

Every day, after school, Wynonna waits in the single furthest parking space from the entrance. She doesn't want to see or be seen, even though this part of the journey is fairly innocent.

Waverly hops in beside her, and Wynonna lets her dictate the radio station. They hardly speak until they're out of the parking lot, down the street, onto one of the quieter roads. Sometimes Wynonna asks about school, but that also reminds her just how young Waverly still is.

They drive way out of town. They've been back to the Panorama a few times, but after the local council added in benches and real parking spots and a barbeque area, it's much less secluded than it used to be.

Wynonna takes the truck down a thin street, which turns into a dirt path, and banks left and off-road. She drives until the trees are thick enough around them, parks, waits until the car shudders to a complete stop.

In a certain way, for Wynonna, it's exciting. She remembers having to sneak off to have sex when she was a teenager. She wonders where Waverly and Champ-

Waverly sees the thought cross Wynonna's face like a shadow. She climbs over to the Wynonna's side and kisses her through it, until she lets the question go. Until she lets everything go.

The sun is just about to begin its final descent for the day. It's the longest they've ever been out. In ten more minutes they'll be late for dinner.

"You told Gus and Curtis you were gonna be late, right?"

Waverly nods. "Told them I was at Champ's."

“Good. I wanna go down on you.”

///

Champ comes up the driveway a bit too fast and parks his car outside the homestead. He rushes over to the door, a mixture of anxious and already angry at what he suspects he'll find. He knocks on the door and Curtis answers.

"Good afternoon, sir," He says, and remembers that probably should have tucked his shirt in. Or smoothed his hair.

"Champ," Curtis steps back to allow him in, but Champ shakes his head.

"Oh no, that's alright sir," he puts on his best Boy Scout smile, "I was just wondering if Waverly was home? I'd like to give her something."

Curtis crosses his arms. He eyebrows, already dangerous close to becoming one, knot together in the middle. He looks at Champ like he can't understand what he's seeing.

"Sir?"

"Waverly said she was at your house."

Champ hides his anger well, but he's already starting to plot. He didn't pay attention to a lot of things in school but Waverly's body was his favourite subject, and he'd been noticing things. Hickey's he didn't recognise, that he was sure couldn't be his doing. He's brought it up to Waverly once, but her explanations didn't make sense with the placement. How could a fall leave a mark so small and perfectly circular in shape?

"Well, she's not." Champ says.

Curtis grinds his teeth together. He needs to get Champ out the door so he can think.

"I'll... find out where she is," He says, "Wynonna was picking her up from school."

"Wynonna's back?" Champ's focus sharply pivots.

Waverly's never told him that much about her, but he knows about as much as anyone in town does. The kind of trouble she gets into. That she's a bad influence. Champ starts imagining all different kinds of reasons for those bruises. He tries to picture Waverly getting into a fight. _Loosing_ a fight. His priorities shift very quickly.

"Is she safe? I can go to the police station on the way back."

"I..." Curtis draws the sound out. He suspects drugs. Or drinking. He doesn't want Waverly in that kind of situation but he doesn't want the police involved either; with the police comes complications. Child services, maybe. Waverly had just turned eighteen but she was still in high school, and he didn't need the whole town suddenly talking about whether or not he was a fit guardian.

And there was prison, too. Wynonna he wasn't worried about. Waverly wouldn't make it an hour.

"Just give me a minute, son. I'll find out what's happening, I'm sure it's just-"

Curtis stops talking when he sees the headlights coming down the road. The sun's all but set and it would be hard to make out details, except that he could recognise his own truck anywhere.

"There they are," he points, and Champ follows it.

Wynonna and Waverly turn up the driveway just then.  Waverly looks up from her phone a second later and sees Champ and Curtis talking.

"Fuck," Waverly says. Wynonna recoils. She realises she hasn't heard Waverly swear outside of sex, maybe ever.

Waverly knows they’re in trouble. Champ was her alibi, and here he is, in the perfect position to deny it.

They pull up next to Champ's truck, and all eyes are on them. Waverly's the first one to leave the safe bubble of the truck. Wynonna grins despite herself; Waverly's always been the braver, the more prepared.

Wynonna's hands shake as she grabs the handle. She's a good liar, but Curtis is a hard man to fool.

"Waverly, baby, there you are-" Champ rushes over and gathers Waverly in his arms, and Wynonna feels a sick sort of smug satisfaction at knowing that she had Waverly cumming on her hand a half hour ago. Waverly's busy with Champ, so Wynonna faces Curtis.

"Hey," she says, giving a stupid smile that Curtis in no way returns.

"You're late." He says.

"Yeah," Wynonna says, "Sorry."

She doesn't offer an explanation yet, doesn't want to until more cards are on the table. If by some weird chance his conversation with Champ didn't involve the subject of Waverly, they might still be safe. But that's fucking unlikely.

"Where were you?"

"We...uhh..." Waverly sees Wynonna struggling, and breaks away from Champ with a string of reassurances that she's fine.

"It's my fault," Waverly says, “I wanted to get a book from the library but they didn't have it at that branch. I made Wynonna drive me to the next one."

Curtis looks between the two of them. He doesn't trust Wynonna as far as he can throw her, but Waverly's a different story. He taps his foot.

"Why'd you say you were at Champ's house?"

"Cause that was the plan. I was gonna get the book and go over there. I shoulda told you it changed. Sorry."

Waverly looks over at Champ, "Sorry, Champ."

Champ's already forgiven her. He comes over and puts an arm around her shoulders, pulls her in close. Wynonna is seething, and hopes ti doesn't show on his face.

"Well, alright," Curtis says, "You'd better come in. Champ, you staying for dinner?"

"I'd love to, sir."

Waverly and Champ hold hands as they walk inside.

Wynonna tries to follow, but Curtis stops her with a hand infront of her body.

"What's the book?" he asks her.

"Huh?"

"The book Waverly got. What's it called?"

"I... I dunno," Wynonna says, "I didn't check. Ask her."

"Well where is it? She didn't take it in with her."

"In her bag," Wynonna points over her shoulder, "Still in the truck."

Wynonna swallows. If Curtis checks... well, then they've got no back up lie. Not a single out left. She tries to keep her face calm and steady, not giving him a reason to be suspicious. He steps away from her and her heart drops when he walks in the direction of the truck.

"Curtis, Wynonna, get in here!" Gus's voice rings out from inside the house, "Food's getting cold."

Curtis stops walking. He gives Wynonna a look that says they aren't finished. Wynonna waits until she's sure he's far away enough not to hear before letting herself sigh in relief.

Talk about saved by the bell.  Wynonna hopes he’ll let this go.

///

He doesn’t.

///

“Champ thinks I'm cheating on him.”

Waverly's sitting in the driver's seat with the door open and Wynonna's jacket draped over her shoulders. Wynonna's out of the car, smoking by the tree line so the smell doesn't get in the truck. Or the jacket.

Wynonna takes the cigarette out of her mouth and raises an one eyebrow. She decides it's not enough, and raises two.

"You _are_ cheating on him."

Wynonna takes another drag and it hits her a bit too hard. She coughs and tries to recover smoothly. In high school, that kind of weakness would've gotten her ridicule. The fact that it was menthol, on top of that, would basically warrant an exile.

Waverly doesn't even seem to notice.

"God, don't remind me."

Wynonna tosses the butt onto the ground and steps it out. It stains the icy ground around it black.

"You reminded yourself." Wynonna approaches the truck and Waverly shifts back to her own seat.

She offers Wynonna her jacket back.

"Keep it. It's getting cold."

"And you don't get cold?"

"You're smaller. Less body heat."

Wynonna gets into the truck and closes the door.

"Do they like him?" Wynonna asks, “Champ?”

Waverly shrugs.

"As much as they could like anyone I'm dating."

Wynonna's whole body feels a bit heavy from the nicotine, and she can't seem to hold her head in a way that's comfortable. Her hair feels like it's weighted wrong.

"Is that... what this is?" Waverly's fiddling with one of the knobs on the radio even though there isn't any power.

"Huh?" Wynonna asks.

"Are we... dating?"

Wynonna opens her mouth, let's out an empty breathing sound.

"You wanna talk about this now?"

"Well..." Waverly rolls her shoulders back, "I was just. I don't know. I think about it, you know. A lot."

"Yeah, me too."

"Like... I won't be angry with whatever you say; I just wanna know what you think. Like is this..." Waverly gestures between the two of them, "Is this just sex, or-"

Wynonna snorts. "God, Waverly. You make it sound so normal. How could I be having _'just sex_ ' with me sister."

Wynonna sees the way the words land on Waverly. Harsh, like a punch to the gut. It's not something they talk about, the sister thing. They hadn't even talked about not talking about it, they'd just developed a system where they didn't acknowledge it while they were together like that. No mentions of their parents, of their shared history, of memories from the brief time when their childhoods were actually intertwined in a normal way. Just two people.

_Just sex?_

Wynonna's insides felt tight at the thought. Calling it that felt so - reductionist, simplistic - wrong that even Wynonna, with her proud history of repression an unhealthy coping mechanisms, thought it was improper. Vulgar. Stupid, for both of them, if it was true.

Who would risk this much, _ruin_ this much, just for sex? She knows that’s probably what Waverly was expecting to hear, even if she knew it wasn’t true. Wynonna had put a lot of effort into the personalities she put out. People take one look at what she’s wearing and think they know her. They see her leathers jackets, dark clothes, and assume she’d describe herself as ‘not the girlfriend type’. Wynonna’s not exactly sure when that assumption started to offend her, but it does. She’s not above love. This is just… messy.

"I don't... what else can it be, baby girl?" Wynonna throws the pet name in to make it easier for Waverly. This is hard for both of them to talk about, and Waverly always seems to relax when Wynonna says it.

"I mean, we can't... we can't be a couple. Not like normal. We can't-" Wynonna wipes at her forehead, which is suddenly feeling much sweatier than it should in the cold weather, “We can't, you know. Live together. Maybe for a bit but... I mean, people would think it's weird. And then there's Champ, you know, and what about if, when, he proposes."

Waverly puts a hand on Wynonna's back, rubs it in a circle.

"That's... you can't give up on that. Even if it's not with Champ. And God, I hope it isn't, I still think he's an idiot," Wynonna exhales with a sarcastic laugh, " _Jesus_.  I can't believe I'm jealous of fucking _Champ_."

"It's not the same with him," Waverly says, "You know that, Wynonna. He doesn't make me feel like you do."

"I can't give you what he can." Wynonna looks straight ahead, toward the tree line. She can't face Waverly, "I can't take you on dates, I can't give you a home, or-or... I don't know, fuck, a family? Do you even want that? I don't know, it doesn't matter.”

Waverly’s hand on her back feels patronizing. Wynonna moves forward so Waverly drops it.

“What would be do, Wave? We can't get married. We can't have kids. I can't even hold your hand in public. I have to drive into the middle of the fucking frozen tundra just to kiss you."

Wynonna gets more animated. She starts talking with her hands, getting louder and louder. Waverly shrinks further into her side as Wynonna's presence seems to flood the space, before she stills, and Waverly can’t read her expression.

"Maybe I don't care about that."

Wynonna doesn't even hear what she says. Her eyes are flicking back and forth between points that aren't either here or there. She's thinking, she's thinking.... about everything she just told Waverly, about what she can't give her, what they can't have, and she's trying to place just what exactly that ache in her chest is.

"Waverly, I just realised, just then-" her voice is far away, like it's coming from outside of the car, being spoken through the glass, "Just when I was talking about... about those things."

"What?"

The images in Wynonna's mind are all tinted in gold. An impossible future where the light is always perfect. Waking with Waverly, breakfast with Waverly, watching rings, a fucking minivan. Wynonna sees it all and let's each image take a bit of her with it.

"I think I'm... I think I'm _in love_ with you," Wynonna half whispers it and leans forward in her seat, her eyes narrowed like the answer is written somewhere in the fogged up windscreen.

"Wynonna, I lo-"

"No!" Wynonna snaps out of her wonder very quickly, all but slaps a hand over Waverly's mouth. "No, don't say it back."

"Why not?"

"Because then we'd have to do something about it."

"We have options. We could leave Purgatory. One of us changes our name. Maybe we both do."

"Stop it."

"Why?"

"Because it's not happening."

"Why not?"

"You really like asking that, don't you?"

"Why isn't it happening, Wynonna."

"The... the curse, for one," Wynonna throw her hands up and open, "And a million other reasons. All it'd take would be a background check and we'd... have to move again. This was a mistake."

"Yeah, well, we knew that." Waverly spits it out like a curse.

"No, not- I mean, talking about this. Now... but yeah, this whole thing is probably a mistake."

"Sorry I brought it up," Waverly rolls her shoulders back like she wants to do with her eyes, but Wynonna is a proud creature and Waverly has gotten fairly decent at knowing when not to poke the bear, "Whatever. Wanna fuck me again?"

///

Curtis borrowed Gus' truck. He followed them from the school, keeping an ample distance between them. The roads are so empty and clean that he doesn't need to worry about losing them. He still suspects drugs. He still suspects _something_.  

///

Waverly wishes she could die on the ride home. In the passenger seat of Gus' truck, with Curtis screaming while he drives. He's so angry; he's so... so _out of it_ , that Waverly winces every time she sees another car. She's terrified. Of crashing. Of staying in the car. Of stopping. Of them reaching their destination.

She wants to fucking _die._

Waverly's fingers are digging half-moons into her palms and she's sobbing, she’s _sobbing_ , and there's nothing she can say because he knows, he saw everything, he _saw everything_ and Waverly speaks four languages but she doesn't know a single word to get herself out of this. She tried sorry. She said it again and again and again while he pulled Wynonna away, while he cussed her out, both of them screaming, while he threw her onto the ground and Waverly honestly believed for a good half a minute that he was going to kill her.

Violence is the only word Waverly keeps thinking of. _Violence._ There hadn't even been any actual blood, but she's so hung up on it, just going over and over in her head.  The pure mix of action and horror is something Waverly's only ever been through once before, and she doesn't even remember the first time.

Even the speed of it felt offensive. Waverly knows, in reality, that the whole thing was over in less than a minute, but she's playing a cut of it in her head that stretches out every second.  The moment she saw him from over Wynonna’s shoulder, how they’d been moaning too loud to hear him coming. The eye contact, him running to the side of the car, almost breaking in the window.

She's never been that afraid. She's never felt that stupid.

Wynonna had gone the opposite way in Curtis' truck, under clear instructions to _'leave it outside Shorty's and get gone fast, I don't care about what shit you've got at my fucking house you better leave as fast as you fucking can I never want to see your fucking face again do you understand? Do you fucking understand me?'_

Curtis hasn't stopped screaming about it since but Waverly can't even hear what he's saying, or her brain is trying to protect her by not processing it. It’s loud enough that other cars can hear them. The few times when Waverly actually does look up from her lap, out the window, people are starting at them from the side of the road. She keeps her head back down.

She can’t look at him. He’s the closest thing to a father she ever remembers having and she can’t ever imagine looking at him again.

Waverly's knuckles turned white a long time ago and the muscles in her arms are so tense that she’s sure she’ll be sore tomorrow. _Tomorrow._ Now _that's_ a thought. Waverly can't imagine making it through the night, can't imagine hours passing the way they should. She knows she won't sleep. She wonders if she'll have a home, come the morning.

Curtis seems to be hammering the same few points; how shocked he is, how _disgusted_ , how he can't believe what they've done. The worst part is he's right about all of it. There's nothing Waverly can say because _he's right_ , she doesn't have a leg to stand on. She just takes it, absorbs every scream into her body until it feels like her bones are vibrating at a frequency that might kill bees.

When the road shifts from paved to dirt, Waverly looks ups again. They're closed to the homestead. Waverly doesn't really know how this could get worse, but she feels like it's about too. If it were up to Waverly, she'd never go home again.

Curtis pauses for a moment. It's just enough to catch his breath, or maybe so that he doesn't frighten the horses, but Waverly takes her chance to ask.

"Please don't tell Gus," she asks. Waverly needs one person in her family who she can still look at, who won't treat her differently for the rest of her life. Who won't hate her, "Please, I'll do anything, just don't tell Gus. Please."

Curtis is half way up the driveway and takes his foot off the gas for what feels like the first time that entire trip. Curtis side eyes her.

At least it's an indication he's listening.

"Please, she doesn't have to know. Wynonna's already gone," Curtis tenses at the use of her name, "It'd upset her, too. Please, just don't tell anyone. I'll take whatever I need to but please don't tell anyone else."

Waverly's entire face is burning. She can't remember ever feeling this much shame, not at all once, all concentrated like that. She's looking around the car and imagining all the different ways something could possibly go wrong. She's taking stock of the number of guns in the house, where they are, how hard they'd be for her to get. It's too much. It's not fun anymore. She just wants to tap out.

Curtis stops the car in front of the homestead without slowing down enough. They both lurch forward. Waverly, without a seatbelt, stops inches from putting her head through the windshield. She tries to recover as smoothly as she can, and straightens herself out, every single fibre of muscle tensed.

Curtis seems to be thinking about something. Waverly isn't sure if that's good or bad for her. He lowers his voice when he speaks again, even lower than it normally is. It sounds dangerous.

"Did she..." Waverly doesn't miss how he avoids using Wynonna's name. Curtis looks uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to say, a complete turnaround from how confident and absolute in his words he'd been just minutes ago, "... force you?"

Waverly's glad she's not looking at him because it gives her the benefit of hiding her reaction.

She hadn't. She hadn't, even though that had been a point of contention near the start of their... relationship. It was one thing Wynonna couldn't let go of, and Wynonna wasn't even the type to wallow in guilt. She just never seemed to be able to forget that night at the bonfire, how this had all started. What almost happened. What _didn't_ happen, but still.

_Still._

It's the first time in an hour Curtis has stopped screaming, and he's looking at her like maybe, _maybe_ there might be something to salvage.

This man, this man who _raised_ her, was giving her an out. All she had to do to take it was call her lover a rapist.  

Wynonna would never even get the chance to defend herself.

Waverly wonders where she is now. The last thing she’d seen of her was her jacket flapping as she ran; her starting the car and speeding off in the direction Curtis told her to go.

Waverly pictures her alone, staring out the window on a Greyhound. She wonders if Wynonna’s praying for the same things she is, doing the same type of suicide math she'd been doing (how many pills could she hoard before someone notices they were missing? How many bullets could she sneak away?)

The difference is, Wynonna’s alone. Wynonna doesn’t have an out.

Waverly doesn’t feel remotely qualified to make this decision.

It takes actual concentration for her to force her hands to uncurl. Only when she stops digging her fingernails into her palms does she realise that it actually hurts, and she winces when her nails withdraw. Curtis is still watching her, expectant. Waverly doesn’t have the courage to glance higher than his mouth; the eyes would be too much.

Waverly just wants to be able to look at him again.

She knows this will ruin them, whatever they are. Wynonna won’t ever forgive her. Worse, Wynonna won’t ever forgive herself. But, God. Waverly is _desperate_ to fix this.

Besides, they’re already ruined. It's not like she'll ever fucking see Wynonna again, anyway.

"Yeah,” Waverly flattens out her hands and they ache as the skin stretches, “Yeah, she did.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW. what was that last episode?  
> in trying to stay as true to canon as possible, ive had to move some things around. its tricky to work within the actual canon timeframe...but i think this is decent.

It'd been a mess of red tape.  Wynonna'd left her passport and ID and driver's license all at Gus and Curtis' house, and that'd been a bureaucratic nightmare to sort out, but eventually she'd gotten as far away as she could. She followed Curtis’ ‘advice’ all the way to Greece, the furthest she'd ever gone.

Wynonna really didn't plan on ever going back. She put down roots in Greece, as deep as she was capable of, which still wasn’t that bad. She got a job. She got a _girlfriend_ , or something like it. She stabilised.

There were months where she hardly spoke to anyone. Waverly only texted her on Holidays. Right back to where they started, to the long months of silence after that night at the bonfire. Wynonna supposes it was warranted. She figures Curtis was probably screening Waverly's texts. Gus was the only one she actually spoke to anymore.

Wynonna made herself alright with it. It's amazing what kind of a beating you can take, and still heal from. How determined the human spirit is to return to equilibrium. Even if she tried, Wynonna just wasn't capable of suffering that much for that long. No matter how much she let herself wallow in it. She had accepted it. She _had_.

And then Curtis emailed her and died a week later. If it’s serious enough to warrant him speaking to her again, Wynonna figures, it must be pretty fucking serious.

Wynonna _really_ hadn't meant to ever go back to Purgatory again. But you never really know, do you.

///

Coming back is a patently bad idea, Wynonna knows that, but it's also unavoidable. The whole time she's been away, she's still been tethered by one thing; that curse that she's never really been able to stop believing in. She'd tried damn hard, and her therapists had too, to convince herself that she was just crazy. It’d be simpler that way, and she probably _was_ crazy, in some way, but Wynonna knows what she saw. Knows what the Earp name is. What it means.

Funny how all her problems seem to come back to that, to the history she can't ever out run.

She's not even within the city limits before she sees someone die.

///

Gus eyes her across from Curtis' burial plot and Wynonna feels like an imposter in her own skin. Gus doesn't even know the whole history with Curtis, couldn't even imagine how badly it had ended, but she knows they weren't on speaking terms.

Wynonna knows Curtis wouldn't have wanted her here. When everyone lines up to pay their respects and give their condolences, Wynonna hangs back. It's the least and the most she can do all at once: the give the dead what they want.

///

"Why are you back, Wynonna? Haven't the people who love you suffered enough?"

"Probably."

///

The bar hasn't changed much, but that's about the only comforting thought. The patrons still eye her with disdain the second she walks through, and Wynonna feels all their eyes on her skin.

One of them steps up to her, trying to get a reaction with a story from a hundred years ago. Everyone assumes her history is a sensitive spot: it isn't. Wyatt Earp died long before she was born, and if it weren't with the curse he's passed on to her, he'd be nothing but a picture and a name in a history book. It's not what he's saying that makes her want to kick his ass; just that he has the gall to say it in the first place.

She's about to go off on him when Champ taps him on the shoulder. "Get beaten up by a girl again?" he says, and sends his friend off and out of the bar. Wynonna wants to roll her eyes.

Yet another reason she didn't want to come back.

When Champ starts blatantly flirting with her, Wynonna assumes that means he's broken up with Waverly. That's some small measure of comfort, and she hopes to hell it was her who dumped him, but she doesn't have the time of the verbal dexterity to obtain those details. She needs to know about Curtis.

It's not hard to get Champ to invite her up; he's always been simple, and that's the only reason Wynonna doesn't hate him more.  Champ is an idiot, and was never good enough for Waverly, and thinks a six pack and tattoos are a substitute for a personality, but Wynonna has never felt threatened by him. He isn’t smart enough for her to consider him an enemy.

Wynonna knows Waverly loved her more, she’s said as much, and that Champ wasn’t anything more than convenient. She’d always known her place in the hierarchy, before.

Wynonna wonders if that’s changed.

In his room above the bar, Wynonna recognises several of Waverly’s things. So they _are_ still together.

Maybe Wynonna does hate him, then.

///

Waverly fires a shotgun at her and it's a fairly fitting reunion, all in all.

Champ is there when they make eye contact, which severly limits both of their options.

“Wynonna?”

She rises from her crouched position.

“Hey, sis,” Wynonna’s not even sure if she’s allowed to say that, “You grew out your…. Hair.”

Waverly wants to say something but closes her mouth first, chews on her words. She gives Champ a withering glare that says they have things to talk about, and then gives Wynonna the same one.

They don’t say a word as they walk through Shorty's and onto the street. Wynonna’s still brushing plaster from the shot off of her jacket, out of her hair.

"What are you doing in town? I mean besides my boyfriend."

"Okay, I wasn’t gonna _do_ anyone, least of all that man-child."

Waverly scoffs.

“I’m trying to find out what happened to Curtis.”

 Champ's been left in the apartment but they're still on the street, and there are still too many ears nearby for either one of them to talk freely. About Curtis’ death… or anything else.

"Oh, and you can do better." Wynonna says. Waverly looks good. _Really_ good. Clearly she’d been making use of those three years, Wynonna thinks. Her skins better than it’s ever been, not that it’d bad, and she’s finished filling out in all the places that matter.

"Well, small town, limited dating options." Waverly doesn’t even try to fight her on it.

"Oh yeah, I remember,” Wynonna says, and it throws Waverly off balance. Her sarcasm hasn’t faded and it’s still enough to get her into trouble. It’s the closest she's come to acknowledging it, and neither of them know exactly what game they’re playing, what the rules are.

Waverly looks at Wynonna while Wynonna looks away. She allows herself just one moment to observe her, mouth pressed in a tight line. She’s focused in a way Waverly hasn’t seen in years. It’s _something_.

 “Hey!” she smacks at Wynonna’s chest, and the pure movement of it breaks her train of thought. Waverly stops in her tracks. For a second, Wynonna expects she's about to get slapped.

“What?”

“It’s been _three years_ ,” Waverly says. She doesn’t mention the why of it. “God, come here.”

She pulls Wynonna into a hug, wrapping arms around her neck. Wynonna doesn’t let her hands settle. It’s too much, Waverly against her. She can smell her perfume and feel every curve of her body, and it’s _too much._ Waverly must know the effect she has. Does she _care_?

Wynonna pats her on the back and breaks away.

“You couldn’t tell me you were coming?”

“I wasn’t.”

///

This agent, Dolls, is really getting on her nerves. Most people, even if they don’t respect her, are at least afraid of her. Not him. Wynonna’s brash with him and managed to get him out of the house as quickly as possible, but his presence still lingers along with that uncomfortable question.

Waverly comes down the steps. Wynonna had both arms behind her on the counters, bracing herself. She doesn’t look up as Waverly walks past her, tapping out a pattern with her fingers on the table.

“He seems nice.”

“As a swift kick to the box.”

“So.”

Wynonna swallows, still refusing to look up. She doesn’t mean to, but her eyes land right on Waverly’s midsection, where just a sliver of her smooth skin is exposed.

It’s the first time they’ve been alone, really alone, since she came back. No one to overhear, just the two of them alone in Gus’ kitchen. Wynonna remembers backing Waverly up against the counter early one morning, before Gus and Curtis were awake, sucking on her neck and fingering her while Waverly called her daddy.

 _This is it,_ Wynonna thinks, _it’s coming._ She braces for it.

“Your 27th birthday.”

_Or not._

Wynonna turns away from her and downs the drink she prepared. If there was ever a good time to talk about it, this would be it, but Waverly doesn't bring it up. Doesn't even try. Doesn’t even want to.

Waverly’d been acting decidedly sisterly since she’d arrived, in a way that doesn’t feel entirely genuine. Wynonna thought she was compensating. But maybe she just isn’t interested.

“That doesn’t mean anything Waverly.”

 “Oh yeah? Then why do you look so spooked?” Waverly tilts her head and even though her back is turned, Wynonna can feel the confidence radiating off of her. Like she knows _exactly_ what’s going on, knows _everything_. Wynonna places her glass back down and faces her. She’s so… put together. Her braid is neat and her outfit is cute, not slutty. Her makeup is soft and natural and she doesn’t really smell like anything but it’s clean. She’s got a job and a boyfriend and the love of a whole town behind her.

She’s moved on.

It takes seeing her like this for Wynonna to realise it’s not what she’d been expecting. She’d been expecting, on some level, to pick right up where they left off. But ‘where they'd left off’ was the worst day of both of their lives, Wynonna running away from death threats while Waverly screamed at her to stay, so Wynonna’s not even sure what that would mean.

Wynonna needs to get out of the house, that room that feels like it’s closing in on her.

“Tell Gus I’m taking the truck.”

Just because Wynonna’d spent three years wallowing doesn’t mean Waverly had to. She’s normal now, and who the hell is Wynonna to waltz back in and touch that.

She takes the hint. Waverly at least deserved a shot at the normalcy she worked so hard for.

///

Or apparently, _not._

Waverly has a whole psycho level murder board hidden away, with pins and pictures and notes. More than that, there's a whole file on the curse. She hadn't stopped looking.

“You’re supposed to be normal, Waverly. You're supposed to be safe!” Wynonna shouts, because she had, she had, and Wynonna had always through that she'd been the one to take that from her. Thought nothing could be worse than the knowledge that she'd robbed her sister of her best chance. But this.. this was worse. This.. Waverly had done it to herself.

Waverly sees the gun in her boot and reaches for it. Wynonna keeps it back; she doesn't want to use any kind of real force against Waverly but she can't get her hands on it. Wynonna knows Waverly: if she starts gets to hold it, she'll never let it go.

"It's old, and it doesn't shoot straight, and it's worth enough to buy us both a chrome condo five thousand miles from here."

“This is our home, Wynonna. I'll protect it, even if you won't.”

Wynonna remembers three years back, to the last hour they spent together before it all came crashing down. She remembers Waverly being the one to suggest running away, the two of them stealing away in the night with as much as they could carry and never looking back. Wynonna had thought it was utterly ridiculous, at the time. Now, it just seems like the most sensible course of action.

Funny how utterly the tables have turned.

“Pack this shit up. This time, you're coming with me.” Wynonna points to the board behind her and starts walking. Waverly doesn’t follow.

 “Oh, yeah, run!”

“Always do,” Wynonna seethes. It’s a low blow, it isn’t fair. That last time hadn’t even been her _choice_.

“I'm serious. I'm taking the 6 a.m. bus with or without you.” Her whole life, nothing good has happened to her here. The closest thing to anything worthwhile was taken from her three years ago and there is nothing left for Wynonna in Purgatory except for the girl ( _woman_ , she reminds herself) in front of her.

“Right,” it’s amazing how something spoken so soft can sound so utterly venomous. Wynonna doesn’t miss the way Waverly’s tearing up.

If she was someone else, if she had the right to, if this was still three years ago and they were still each other’s lovers, Wynonna would have rushed forward and grabbed her and kissed her until they were both breathless.

But she isn’t, and she doesn’t. And they aren’t.

“You know, of all the things I've ever wanted to call you...” Waverly shakes her head, eyes wet, and she knows that if she blinks right now she’ll start crying. Knows that the second Wynonna leaves, it’ll be all she can do to the fall to the floor and sob.

She still doesn’t break eye contact. 

“You're _such_ a coward.”

///

Waverly almost dies within twenty four hours of their reunion. Wynonna knows that bad news tends to follow her, but _fuck_.

It’d been so close. If she’d been just off in her aim, off like she’d been with their father… Jesus. Wynonna doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t hear Waverly approach.

“You’re really staying this time, aren’t you?”

Wynonna’s balanced on the fence and looking out over the plains. She can remember running across them as a child, wanting to go as far out as she could for no other reason than she could.  

Waverly leans across the fence, hands out behind her. Her outfit shouldn't work but it does. Her hair is in a loose ponytail and falls far down her back, and Wynonna wishes she could kiss her. Wynonna doesn't know how to be with her, anymore.

 “That’s why they call it a curse.”

///

Waverly’s feelings for Wynonna have always been complicated enough all by their own, thank you, without Waverly seriously considering what that implied about her sexual orientation. It’d always been so far beyond the vale, anyway, that it didn’t even matter than Wynonna was a girl. Just that she was Wynonna. Somehow she’d slept with a woman several dozen times and still Waverly hadn’t ever considered what that meant.

And then Nicole _Haught_ walks into the bar.

She's charming from the first second, and Waverly would be annoyed if she weren't all caught up in it herself. Waverly doesn't even point out the obvious issues in her saying that she thought they were open (It was empty, it was noon, there were chairs stacked on tables) because she's too busy thinking about how nice she looks when she smiles.

God, and Nicole _knows_ it, too.

The entire universe seems to want to make this as hard for her as humanly possible, because the tap chooses that exact moment of all the times she'd touched it in the last week to explode all over there. And then she'd taking her shirt off with Nicole in the room, and then she's stuck. Nicole comes around the bar to help her, and Waverly notices how nice she smells. It stands out, after being around Wynonna; she doesn't smell bad, just too chemical, just to motorcycle-exhaust-cigarette-aftertaste, and Waverly doesn't even notice until she's away from her just how _used to it_ she's become.

///

This flirt-but-don’t-flirt thing with Nicole starts to become a bit too much too handle. It would be fun, if she were anyone else, but there was still Champ. And the demon reventants. And everything she still hadn't talked to Wynonna about. It was just another thing she had to try and fix, no matter how cute Nicole is or how nice she looks when she smiles or how her hair smells.

Champ doesn't deserve it. Waverly decided years ago that he was a good guy, and he hadn't ever proved her wrong. Every time she's with him she thinks about Nicole, and it feels even worse than it did when she was cheating on him with Wynonna. Somehow, that didn't feel like cheating. Or, the fact that it was cheating was the least of her worries, so she didn't even think about it, really. Nicole is... _real,_ and here, and is _really_ an option.

She ends it with Champ long before it even becomes anything real with Nicole. She's already cheated on him once, she refuses to do it again. He takes it surprisingly well, if she ignores the long string of texts and calls she finds from him every time she checks her phone for the next week.

It's for the best. It really is.

She tells Nicole she broke up with him and her reaction is predictable; she’s pleased, obviously, but tries to hide it under the thin veil of 'Oh no, that's too bad, are you alright?"

Waverly gives her a tired smile and lays a hand on Nicole's forearm.

"It's alright. You don't have to," Waverly locks eyes with her, "I know you didn't like him. Sometimes, I'm not sure if I even liked him."

Nicole laughs a little too hard at that.

"Wanna go get a drink?"

Waverly pulls her hand back.

"Uh, Nicole, I," Waverly stutters. It was fast. Too fast. She knew Nicole liked her, but Jesus, she'd expected she's offer a little time to grieve too. She didn't expect her to swoop in the second he was gone, vulture like and unrepentant. Not Nicole.

"Relax," Nicole says, "Not like that. Just a drink. Friendly. I figure you could use it."

Waverly smiles to herself.

"Where? It'd be kinda sad to drink at the place I work, don't you think."

"Sad? Nah, you know where they keep the good stuff."

"What good stuff?"

Nicole lifts an eyebrow and leans into the laugh.

"So that's a yes?"

"Yeah. Alright. I just gotta check I have my ID. I always get carded."

"Yeah, cause you look about twelve."

"Watch it, Haught. I _can_ change my mind."

The night goes fine. She gets carded, of course, and Nicole teases her about it. They sit together in a booth and get gradually more and more wasted until past midnight.

It’s just friendly. Nothing happens. She isn’t even with Champ.

It still feels like she’s cheating. Waverly doesn’t know why.

///

That’s a lie. She does know why.

It's because part of her never left that truck. There's a clearing in a forest in her head where a winter afternoon never turns dark, where Wynonna's hand stay on her body forever. It’s always the moment right after Wynonna says she loves her, and in this version Waverly gets to say it back. In this version, Curtis never comes. Wynonna never leaves.

The Wynonna in her head is different than the one in the next room, now moving something heavy around. Waverly can hear it thud and scratch in a strange way that keeps Waverly from figuring out exactly what she's doing. Waverly's on her bed, and she pulls her knees up to her chest. It's the first time they've lived together in more than a decade, and neither of them really know or remember how to navigate sharing space that isn't the driver's seat of Wynonna's truck.

She can’t think about Nicole without thinking of Wynonna, and however much she wants… whatever she wants. It’s just all a mess, and Nicole is… terrifying in an entirely different way, and Waverly doesn’t know if she’s brave enough or if it’ll kill her, and it’s just all so complicated and she doesn’t see a way for it to just-

Fuck it.

Waverly gets up from her bed and starts moving fast, so fast she can’t even stop to think, because if she does she’ll lose all her nerve. She closes the door too hard, and Wynonna yells after her, asking where she’s going. Waverly starts the car just as Wynonna makes it out the door, and drives off to find Nicole.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this almost killed me lmao. writing around canon events is.. hard. and i feel liek i got too introspective at parts but uuh.. anyway .

So, she's dating Nicole now. That's... different. Maybe dating isn't exactly the right word -  they haven't had that conversation yet (and somewhat importantly, they haven't actually gone on a date) - but they're spending a lot of time together and making out at regular intervals, so Waverly supposes that means something.

Waverly swings by Nicole's desk and grabs a file, and Nicole catches on quick. She follows Waverly to Nedley's office with an endearing grin plastered on her face, and leans in for Waverly's mouth before they're even through the door.

Movement from the side of her eye makes Waverly pull away. No one knows. They're keeping it secret. Nicole thinks it's because Waverly isn't out, which it partly is, but more than that. She isn't afraid, not of the town's judgement, even though folks in Purgatory could be pretty slow to change. She's handled worse. She's survived worse. Waverly imagines telling people, seeing the confusion and the realisation and then the _anger? Acceptance? More confusion?_ On their faces.

It doesn't even feel that scary. In all the hypotheticals, Nicole is by her side, and that makes everything easy.

Until she thinks about telling Wynonna.

Wynonna, who walks into the Sherriff’s office and almost catches Nicole and Waverly together,. They both try to act as casual as possible, which isn’t very, as Wynonna gives the two of them a strange look.

Thinking about Wynonna shuts everything down fast. The one person she can't tell. There's too much there, the whole thing is a fucking minefield. She has no idea how Wynonna would react; for all their history, Waverly realises that she actually doesn't know that much about Wynonna. They haven't spent enough time together, and when they were spending time together, they had more pressing issues than talking to each other.

Champ hadn't been an issue in the same way. Waverly had just texted Wynonna to fill her in, without any of the doubting or agonizing. She wonders if it's because Champ's a man, if that made it easier. Not just in the obvious way, but because he was so incomparable to Wynonna it didn't even matter. Apples and oranges.

"Why are you guys in Nedley's office?" Wynonna looks at them and leans over the counter.

"We were just- uh..." Nicole glances around, apparently forgetting the file Waverly has in her hand, and points to some indeterminate spot deeper in the station.

"Y- yeah," Waverly agrees, even though Nicole hasn't really said anything.

Wynonna half raises on eyebrow, too tired to even be really suspicious. Or too busy, maybe.

Still, she can't conceal everything, and Waverly doesn't miss the way her expression flickers for just a second before moving on to the next thing.

///

“What, are you and Nicole best friends now?”

Waverly lingers in the doorway for just a second, before she turns and walks through it.

“And what the hell is a poker spectacular?”

///

Waverly's holding her shirt up to expose the wound and she doesn't miss the way Wynonna looks at her, not for a second. She preoccupies herself with the medicine, getting it ready, has to force herself not to look when it's so obvious she wants to. Waverly almost wants to tell her to just give it up, to look all the wants. It's so much more awkward when she has to try so hard to restrain herself.

Wynonna reaches over the table with some of the ointment on two fingers, and makes light contact with just that one area of Waverly's skin. It's so light, it's like she's not even touching, not really. Wynonna's arm is unsteady; Waverly can see the way strange muscles - muscles that people haven't needed for a hundred thousand years since man descended from trees - tense and flicker all the way up her forearm.

"You think it'll scar?"

"Dudes dig scars," her voice is too flat, like it's not really making contact with what she's saying. Waverly's arm is up at a weird angle, trying to hold her shirt up, and she wants to just drop it and cover up. She's too exposed. She's too...

This is too dangerous.

Everything with Wynonna is too dangerous. Every word means more than it does. She can't touch her without considering it. Even being alone in the same room... that's dangerous, too.

"Do chicks?" Waverly can't help the way her eyes flick down and back up a moment later. Wynonna looks _good_ when she's focused on something. Some people look better smiling, and some people look best when they're sad. Wynonna looks best when she's on a mission.

Wynonna stops what she's doing, stills her hands. Something like a ghost crosses Wynonna's face. For a second, she looks so much younger. So much sadder, too. Then it’s just all confusion.

 Wynonna face pinches together at points and Waverly fights to keep her expression normal, not give Wynonna what she wants to see there. Waverly isn't even sure what Wynonna wants to see, or if she even knows it herself.

Waverly drops her shirt down and it's like that lets Wynonna focus again, by putting it away. Her eyes soften, everything softens, and for just a second she looks so at peace. Her lips open just a fraction, and Waverly notices just how red they are.

The table is small and there's room in the kitchen. It'd be easy to reach over it. Wynonna can be gentle - with Waverly - when she needs to be. Waverly wonders if they... right then.. if it would be bad for her injury. If she'd even mind if it hurts a bit.

Dolls walks in a second later and the energy dissipates, and Waverly is so relieved.

_If he hadn't...._

///

"Give me peacemaker, or I punch a punch of holes in Waverly's girlfriend."

Waverly knows it’s inappropriate to be worried about stumbling out of the closet when there's a very real chance Nicole could be seconds away from getting shot, but she can't help it. She flinches the second Willa lets it slip.

"Girlfriend?" Wynonna feels like the floor gets ripped out from under her. She glances at Waverly. The worst part is she doesn’t even have the right to feel betrayed.

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

This is _so_ not the time.

"I know you won't shoot," It's a bluff. Wynonna doesn't know. She's been realising just how little she knows about everything, how she only just found out about Waverly and Nicole because one of them was about to get shot. How she can't see anything. Or doesn't want to see, rather.

"What do I care about some ginger butch cop?" Willa's hand is steady on the gun and her face is even steadier. She's been gone a long time. Waverly wonders what the hell had to happen to her to make her life this.

"Wynonna, she'll do it," Waverly would hand Peacemaker over herself, if she had it. She leans forward, closer to Wynonna, but any kind of fast movement is likely to trigger Willa into shooting.

"It's the only thing that'll stop Bobo," Wynonna says. It's not what she wants to stay; her mind is still stuck a few sentences back. Girlfriend. _Girlfriend_. Time to process is a luxury none of them can afford. She had to keep going, forward. Has to rip her brain off of sticky thoughts, no matter how much it hurts.

“Please, I love her.” Waverly tries to whisper it but Wynonna hears, Nicole hears, Willa hears. They all hear and they all watch Wynonna.

Something so dark and sick and angry stabs at Wynonna from the inside that she half expects Peacemaker to turn on her for it. She won’t call it evil. It’s not a demon or a revenant or a monster; those she can understand. Those she can see.

Those she can _kill._

Wynonna wants to hold onto that moment, to remember just how much it hurts. Maybe if she drives the knife in deep enough herself, lets the pain stay, leans into it. Maybe if she lets it almost kill her, if she never lets it go, if she never forgets how _bad it hurts_ , then at least she'll learn her fucking lesson this time. At this stage, Wynonna isn't convinced anything short of electroshock therapy could cure her. Maybe not even then.

But Waverly’s in love with Nicole, and Wynonna is too in love with Waverly to deny her that. It’s what she’d always told herself she wanted: for Waverly to be normal, happy. Time to put her money where her mouth is.

_“Okay.”_

Wynonna has to force her hand up to hand it over. She's not sure if she's imagining it, but she thinks she hears Waverly whisper a thank you.

"We're coming for you," Wynonna says, even though she's just given away her secret weapon, her trump card.

"Then I better slow you down."

Willa shoots Nicole anyway. Wynonna freezes for too long: she should have grabbed her, she was faster than Willa, stronger too, she should've talked her and got the gun, if she hadn't been so goddamn _slow_.

Waverly reacts before she does, but she goes straight for Nicole. Wynonna turns; she doesn't think she's ever seen Waverly quite so scared, not even on the day Curtis found them.

It's so selfish. She wants to be the only reason Waverly worries. Nicole's taken that from her.

"No blood. There's _no blood_ ," Wynonna walks slowly toward them. Waverly's got Nicole on her back and her hands are a blur, but she’s unfocused, isn’t helping.

“My sister joined the dark side, and if you’ve been a revenant this whole time I’m just gonna call in sick tomorrow.”

///

She kills Willa, and then they take Dolls. It all goes so fast that being in love with her sister quickly becomes Wynonna's smallest problem.

She doesn't rest for days. Wynonna doesn't think she's ever worked that hard in that short a period of time. Everything inside her is sore, bone tired. She feels heavier, like someone took something out of her, or put something in.

Waverly notices. Of course she does. She pulls Wynonna aside and tells her as much. Wynonna doesn’t miss the way Nicole looks at them as they leave together. Nicole doesn't know, of course. She can't. The only person besides the two of them who ever knew is dead, head taken clean off his shoulders. Still, Wynonna doesn't like the way Nicole is looking. Or maybe she just doesn't like Nicole.

They go up to Waverly's old room, her childhood bedroom, and Wynonna realises that she hasn't been up here for more than a couple of minutes in longer than ten years. She'd stayed away since they'd moved back into the homestead: it just felt too much, too personal. She felt like a guest in her own house, only sticking to the public spaces. Kitchen, living room. The entire second floor makes her feel like she didn't belong. Waverly's room was something else entirely.

Waverly's concern feels _so_ good though, and Wynonna can't help herself but to lean into it.

///

“Hey Wynonna, have you noticed any… you know, changes, in Waverly?” Nicole asks.

Wynonna just wants to leave. Any good will she’d had toward Nicole when they’d first gotten to know each other, about her being smart and reasonable and well-armed, had dissipated real fast when she’d found out just how involved Nicole and Waverly were.

She can tell Nicole must think she’s real fucking smart, like she’s clued into something special, the only one who can understand Waverly. She doesn’t. She know Waverly, she doesn’t know _shit_. 

“Were you hoping for some?”

Waverly’s not acting strange. A lot has happened. It’s just to be expected. If Nicole knew Waverly like she did, Wynonna thought, she’d know better. Waverly’s fine, as fine as she could be. Just shaken up.

///

Famous last words. Waverly loses a hand, and then gets it back, and all over some stupid plate. It’s a hell of a day, and Wynonna is _tired_. She wants to sleep, and ignore the high tension confession Waverly had made while they were both tied down to chairs and trying to escape.

 

 

“We should talk about the uh, demon goo,” Wynonna wrings her hands out infront of her. Nervous tick. “At the arch.”

Waverly turns away from her, walks away, slowly.

“Babe,” Wynonna says. She doesn’t even have time to berate herself for her word choice. She didn’t even think about it. “Whatever you did, I want to help.”

“Good,” Waverly says. Wynonna forces herself to stay in place. “Because I am so sick of fighting her. She's so strong.”

“The thing inside of you?”

“No, stupid. The thing outside of me.”

Waverly turns, and it’s not Waverly.

Wynonna raises peacemaker. It glows and trembles in her hand.

“Like you're gonna kill another sister.”

The way she’s talking, the way she – it – spits out the words. It’s so unlike Waverly. It makes it a bit easier.

“I won't let you kill her either.”

The gun doesn’t fit comfortably in her hand. It’s too sweaty and feels too thick in places, like overthinking how to hold scissors. It doesn’t feel right. If she pulled the trigger, she’s sure the kickback would send her halfway across the room.

“If only. She's been resisting me so hard,” Waverly’s voice is her voice, but not. The way she holds herself is so incompatible with the rest of her. “I'm exhausted.”

Wynonna lowers the gun, but doesn’t drop it.

“Do you know how much energy it takes to regrow a human hand?”

Waverly, or whatever it is, holds its hand out and turns it slowly. It’s a perfect recreation, fresh from her DNA with no scarring. That hand’s never even been dirty. Never bled. Wynonna always loved Waverly’s hands.

“Waverly, baby girl,” _Over the line_ , “if you're still in there-“

“I'm not having any fun.”

 _Neither am I,_ Wynonna thinks.

“But today…” the thing starts moving toward her. Wynonna is rooted in the spot. She can’t move. “You… you like to have fun.”

It gets closer and closer, well into Wynonna personal space, and Wynonna wonders just what powers this thing has. She wishes she could blame what she’s feeling on hypnosis.

“Yeah, I'm a real hoot.”

She’s close, far too close. Wynonna can’t quite look at her, and her eyes keep darting between the floor and just off Waverly’s head, like she’s looking at her aura. Waverly face comes close to hers, so close that her eyes unfocus, she can’t even see the detail right.

“Oh, and you'd be so _easy_.”

Waverly puts her hand to the side of Wynonna head, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It’s so unsettling: Waverly’s done it before, under _very different_ circumstances. When they were both tired and warm from each other’s bodies and blissed out from orgasm, when everything felt soft and a little golden. Next to that, this feels… offensive.

“What?” Wynonna knows what. The way Waverly is looking at her, eyes all black but Wynonna can still tell they’re looking at her lips. She’s too close for this to go any other way. It’s been so long since they’ve been so close. Wynonna doesn’t realise until Waverly is touching her just how utterly starved she is, how she wants to collapse forward and fall into her even though it’s not really her.

She could pull away. She _could._ That’s always been an option, ever since this all started, that first time Waverly kissed her at the bonfire. She could stop her. She doesn’t.

When she sees Waverly move Wynonna close her eyes and leans in, just enough to be sure she did it. Just enough to remove her own deniability.

It isn’t Waverly, but _God_ , it looks like her. Kisses like her, too, which is the _most_ surprising. It’s not Waverly, but it’s the best she can get.

She’ll take it.

Until she feels something, and realises that it’s _really_ not Waverly. The smoke feels hot and tastes disgusting and she feels like she’s going to throw up but the whole thing, mercifully, is over pretty quick. Wynonna feels herself fall backward in her own mind and then Peacemaker starts to burn and Waverly falls to the floor, unconscious.

“Oh yeah. Oh, this is so much better.”

Waverly’s laid out on the floor, on her side. Wynonna advances, not of her own accord.

“Now. What are we going to do with you?”

Wynonna watches as her hand - not her hand - moves up the side of Waverly's body. It's like she's tied down, eyes held open with matchsticks. She can't stop looking. She can't even decide when she blinks. Like she's just watching this all play out on a screen, impotent and screaming at a horror movie.

But this isn't a movie. This is just horror.

Wynonna still feels what her body feels. She knows what's coming. The demon, or goo, or whatever it is bites its lip, and Wynonna knows. She's going to have to watch. She's going to have to feel it. She's going to have to be there while it rapes Waverly.

At least she's unconscious, Wynonna thinks, maybe she won't have to remember this. Won't even have to know it happened. Wynonna wishes she had that luxury.

Maybe, if she's lucky, she won't remember it either. Maybe, if she's lucky, she won't survive the possession.

///

Waverly's tied down to the chair, rag in her mouth, terrified. Wynonna is _terrifying,_ unhinged, unpredictable. Waverly had that thing inside her for seven weeks, she knows better than anyone how absolutely destructive it can be. She also knows that, somewhere in there, Wynonna is still watching, fighting it.

Waverly can't tell if the demon is stronger now or if Wynonna is just weaker than her. She'll never say it, but she suspects the latter.

Wynonna hadn’t managed to take control once last night, not even as… as any of it, as she had to watch, she wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t fighting hard enough. She only breaks through once, briefly, and it takes Waverly almost dying to do it. She manages to wrestle control for long enough to drop the saw, but she’s not around for much longer than that. Waverly knows it’s Wynonna through and through because of her eyes and not just because of the colour: because of how _sorry_ they look. She can see Wynonna wants to scream it, but her words are so limited because her mouth isn’t her own and Waverly just stares back and hopes she gets it, that she understands. She forgives.  

They both know what happened, even if they don’t want to. Even if they can’t say it.

Waverly’s clothes are back in place, messy, but nothing turned inside out. Nothing so obvious that you'd immediately be able to tell what happened. Waverly could've woken up and assumed it was just an effect of being moved while she was out. She'd been lying on a cold, hard floor. She's slept wrong. That made sense. That was a fine explanation. She could make herself believe that. The popped button on her shirt, the crook of her neck, the way her legs hurt - it didn't have to mean anything.

But it did. She’s sore in a way she only ever was after Champ, and if she looks for evidence, she knows she'll find it.

Wynonna’s gone again as quickly as she came, and Waverly flinches when the thing leans in and plants a harsh kiss on her cheek.

“My rides here.”

///

“Waverly needs space. She's dying under the weight of your expectations. Waverly's not the white picket fence in Purgatory girl you want her to be anymore.” Even though it’s not her own words, Wynonna still gets a sick kind of pleasure in saying them. There’s _so much_ she wants to say to Nicole, and she’d been working hard to keep her mouth shut.

 “You know Wynonna, you're really mean when you drink before noon,” Nicole says. “And you drink before noon too often.”

The worst part is how _right_ she is.

Nicole is so…decent. A good cop. A good woman. A _great_ girlfriend, even by Wynonna’s much less than objective account. She’s just so… well adjusted. Opposite from Wynonna in every way that counts.

Wynonna never even thought she was the jealous type, and she has no right to be jealous over Waverly any more. But _fuck_. It’s so much worse than Champ. He wasn’t even a threat. Nicole _is_.  

“Hope your Tinder game's solid.”

///

“Stand back, Wynonna. Waverly told me everything. You come forward, and I'll shoot.”

Nicole has her gun out and aimed at _Wynonna_. “Haught, settle down. The demon jumped into Waverly,” Wynonna lifts the flask, “She needs to drink this. Now.”

Waverly’s behind her but her eyes are all black and she’d looking at Wynonna, smirking like she’s won. Like _it’s_ won.  
  
“Don't trust her,” Waverly says.

“Yeah. Flask, demon did its homework,” it’s a cheap shot, one Wynonna knows will stay in her mind when they get out of this. _If._

“Nicole! You are not my sister's keeper.”

“That's the demon talking.”

“No. It's me. Listen, I'll admit, you're a little queen brisk of bossy town for my taste,” a little bit a lot of things for Wynonna taste. I little too close to Waverly for her taste, primarily, “but I know… that you love her and you know I love her too, and now that thing is trying to keep her.”

Nicole can’t possibility understand what that means, or how hard it is for her to say. Wynonna just hopes she gets the message.

“Shoot her. It's the only way.”

Nicole’s brows knot together. Her gun drops, just a bit, and she looks forward into nothing.

“Waverly Earp would never say something like that. Never.”

Nicole turned around, saw two full black eyes.

“Ugh. You're weak.”

“Oh Waverly, let her help you.”

Waverly knocks Nicole to the side and she landed hard, painfully, on sharp edges. Waverly isn’t that strong. Shouldn’t be that strong.

Wynonna approaches like she’s afraid of getting bit. Honestly, that isn’t an entirely ridiculous conclusion. Waverly is chuckling but her voice isn’t right, and she’s look at Nicole like she hasn’t done enough damage already. Wynonna knows what the demon is capable of. Horribly, first hand, undoubtedly, she _knows._

“Waverly, honey. Babe,” Wynonna pauses, look at Nicole on the floor, “I know you're in there. I know you can hear me.”

Waverly laughs, dancing around the lightning rod and with light touches here and there.

“Look what you did to the woman you love.” Wynonna’s eyes flick down to where Nicole isn’t entirely conscious yet, then back at Waverly. She’s surprised her voice doesn’t shatter with how much it hurts to get out.

“Oh, _storm's upon us_. It's time.”

“You've held off this tentacle shit head for weeks. Just give it one more push.” Wynonna holds the flask up, “Drink it. Fight it.”

Wynonna can see the exact moment Waverly comes back. It’s only in her face; her eyes clear up, but the rest of her body still seems far too high strung to be entirely human, “It - it won't …won't let me.”

“Waverly…”

“Wynonna! Remember when you made me drink grape soda 'til it came out of my nose?”

Wynonna does remember: between the unwholesome attachment and the repression, it’s among the few non fucked up childhood memories she still has left.

“Yeah!” she hits Waverly in the stomach and throws her onto the floor, straddling her, all in one motion. Waverly groans and Wynonna doesn’t know if she’s hurting her, or the monster,

“Open your mouth! Open it!” Waverly does, and Wynonna wastes no time in pouring the solution down her throat. She can only imagine how bad it must taste. She clamps a hand over Waverly’s mouth, and remembers the last time she did that, it was for a very different reason.

“Ok! Drink! Drink it! Come on! Swallow!”

It goes remarkably quickly after that. The demon leaves Waverly, and Wynonna shoots it down, Peacemaker singing and red and sending Mikshun all the way back to hell. When he, she, it, whatever, is gone, Wynonna realises just how quiet the barn is. She’s the only one fully conscious out of the three of them.

Nicole comes to first, and runs to Waverly. Wynonna has to stop herself from making it a race to reach her: she doesn’t always get to be the first responder anymore. She doesn’t get to be the knight.

“Oh, Waverly. Get up.”

“Whoa. That was _so_ New Year's 2012.”

Wynonna stand back from the two of them, trying to keep her eyes away, trying to figure out where to put her hands.

“I can't believe I ordered you to shoot her.”

“I almost did it, too. I would shoot anybody for you.”

“That's really sweet.”

Wynonna watches with gritted teeth as they lean in and kiss, and kiss, and it goes for _so fucking long_ and all she can do is stand there, the grip on Peacemaker getting sweaty, and try not to think about when she used to kiss Waverly like that.

When it’s just too much, Wynonna clears her throat.

“Come on. Let's get her in the house.”

She crouches down next to Nicole and takes half of Waverly weight.

“Thank you for saving our girl.” Nicole’s half talking from behind Waverly head, her face buried in her hair. Wynonna tries not to flinch.

“That thing took Willa. Wasn't letting it get Waverly.”

“I knew you'd rescue me.” Waverly says.

“All I did was bring a flask. It's just standard Earp operating procedure.”

Between her and Nicole, they get Waverly up fairly easily.

“You said some nasty things.” Nicole says, once she’s steady.

“Well, that was the demon talking,” Wynonna takes Waverly’s weight entirely onto her and forward, letting Nicole out of it. Nicole takes the hint and stays behind. “I don't believe all of it.”

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘all of it’?” Nicole calls after them as Wynonna finally gets Nicole out of there, gets her alone, where she doesn’t constantly have to act like she’s happy for the new couple. The second they’re out on the cold, Wynonna feels her whole body relax. The cult, or whatever they are, are gone now too. She can see the vague movement of their silhouette’s in the distance as the sun starts to set – aside from that, nothing out of place. Waverly is Waverly again, and she’s demon free again.

Wynonna gets Waverly into the house and helps her all the way into her room. She doesn’t let herself stay in there long, but promises Waverly she’ll be back with some bullshit herbal tea in a minute.

For the moment, at least, it seems all pending crisises have been dealt with. Wynonna plans to enjoy it while it lasts.

///

\+ YES.

_Fuck._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets don't stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but I really got discouraged. Not to be that bitch, but writing for an unpopular pairing is really difficult because of just how little audience interaction you get, as I'm sure everyone's experienced at some point. I was discouraged earlier when people kinda promised to comment on other chapters, so I was expecting it, and ended up not. It's fine if you can't comment on every chapter, but don't say you will and then don't, because that's just really disappointing. When it took me like, a full 24 hours to get a single comment on the last chapter, and days more to get any more, I switched back to my other account to write for more popular ships for a while. I'm not asking everyone write a novel in the comments section, but comments really do fuel me.
> 
> ANYWAY. I'm still gonna keep writing this angsty shit, but I might be a bit slower.

It's fine. She has options. She has time. Purgatory might be a backwater but it's not so stuck in the past that Wynonna would have to travel a ridiculous way to find a clinic that could do what she needed to. She figures she doesn't look past first trimester, and gives herself a couple of weeks to choose, make the appointment and get it done if she still wants to stay ahead of it. She's a twenty first century woman, and she has choices. It's her body.

Then time stops for a month, for everyone but the baby. She's too busy to panic at first, trying to keep everyone from sleeping so long they start to rot. She finds Waverly half dressed in bed, not a new sight, but knows that means Nicole is somewhere in the house too. Her worries are stacked so on top of each other that she's not even panicking. It's something like a bed of nails: she only has that much terror in her body, and it's dispersed evenly.

When it's all done, though, Wynonna realises she doesn’t really have much of a choice anymore.

///

Waverly holds her that night and she cries into her lap, angry because Waverly's giving all she can reasonably expect, and it's not enough, it's not _enough_.

///

Waverly knows something is very wrong as soon as she arrives at Nicole's house. Tucker's car is outside, just pulling out and speeding off. Waverly knows it's his because it's a 2014 BMW, and the Gardeners are the only assholes rich enough to own rich asshole cars in the entire Ghost River triangle area.

He slows down just a fraction when he passes Waverly, getting out of the track. Wynonna in the other seat raises and eyebrow, and Waverly shrugs. She hops out of the truck and the snow hardens under each step she takes on the way to Nicole's house. Waverly's watching her feet, not looking up, and almost bumps into Nicole before she realises that she's just standing in the door way.

"Oh, Nicole!" Waverly steps back and expects Nicole to smile, invite her in. Her face is still and straight, and the most she reacts when she makes eye contact with Waverly is stepping a little to the side in the doorway. Waverly loses Nicole's eyes as they flick over her shoulder. She hears the door of the truck open and shuts and knows Nicole is watching Wynonna, coming up behind her.

Nicole rolls her jaw so hard something clicks. She doesn't say anything, but steps out of the door way and holds her arm out for Waverly to enter. Wynonna was just supposed to be dropping Waverly off on her way to meet with Dolls, but Nicole keeps waiting.

Waverly walks past her into the house, trying to glance back one time, hopi9nh to see Nicole give away something in her face. There's nothing, but whatever it is, Waverly knows its not good. Waverly's never felt so cold in this house before. It was one of the few places she'd always felt good. Sacred, almost.

Wynonna's boots thud on the steps on the way up but neither of them say anything. Waverly turns back around the face the door and watches how Nicole seems torn, half wanting to block Wynonna's entry, half wanting to shove her inside. Wynonna's feet turn to leave but Nicole just stays, watching, until Wynonna steps into the house too.

"Nicole... what is..."

Nicole steps into the house and closes the door behind them. It brings a draft of icy wind with it, and Waverly shiver all the way down to her toes.

"I saw Tucker's car," Waverly says, pointing through the door to outside, "Was he here?"

"Yep." Nicole says that, and nothing more.

"What did he... are you okay?" Waverly asks, stepping closer to Nicole.

"He didn't do anything to me." Nicole says, "But he told me something."

Waverly feels Wynonna shift next to her, more than hears it.

"Told you.... what?" Waverly frowns. Nicole is making this... difficult.

It's so unlike her.

"Something about you."

Waverly swallows, and Nicole walks past both of them and into the living room. Waverly and Wynonna stand in the entry, looking over at each other, looking over at Nicole.

"Sit." Nicole says. Waverly moves first, uncertain. Wynonna's twitching, taps Peacemaker on her hip to make sure it's still there.

Waverly watches the floor as she walks.

"About me?" Waverly says.

Nicole shakes her head. "About both of you." Nicole's hands and tight and wrapped over her knee caps. The knuckles are white. "About both of you... _together_."

Waverly drops to the couch all in one move and it's much louder than she'd been hoping for. It seems to frighten Nicole. Wynonna sits down next to her.

"Is it true?"

Nicole looks between the both of them, but her attention ends up landing on Waverly. She shrinks under her gaze, bites her lower lip. Waverly looks like she's about to cry.

Wynonna clears her throat. She can save Waverly this. If nothing else, she can save her this.

"Yes," Wynonna says. She has to force her head up, like gravity is suddenly stronger, trying to pull it down. "Yes, it's true."

For a moment, it's quiet. Nicole doesn't even flinch and Wynonna gets ready to repeat herself, but then Nicole locks eyes with Waverly.

Nicole opens her mouth like she wants to say something. She stands up, and walks for the door. She's collected, all pulled up into herself and together like and armadillo, and for a second Wynonna thinks that maybe it isn't going to be so bad. Then she turns back around.

"What the fuck, Waverly?" Nicole leans forward, seeming three times bigger than she is. She talks directly at Waverly, like Wynonna isn't even in the room. Like she's dead to her.

" _What the fuck."_ She's getting louder and her voice is starting to flutter. It's pitchy and wrong and sounds worse than nails on chalkboard, "How the _fuck_ could you do this? She's your… your _sister_ , Waverly, _Jesus Christ_. Your fucking _sister_. I can't believe I have to say that. I can't believe this, I can't-"

Nicole throws her hands up and back down again, clenches them at her side. She's radiating energy; nervous and angry all at the same time and Wynonna and Waverly both lean back, away from her. They don't know what she'll do. They don't know if she'll strike. They don't know what might set her off.

"Baby, please, let me exp-"

"Baby?" Nicole spits, "Don't fucking ' _baby_ ' me. You're fucking your sister, Waverly, do you even know how... Do you even _care_? What the _fuck_."

Wynonna is beginning to regret their seating arrangements. She'd thought it'd be easier if she and Waverly sat next to each other, like there was some sort of safety in numbers. Now, it just makes the image worse.

"Not anymore," Waverly says, "It was... years ago, it's not... it ended."

"God," Nicole's jaw drops, " _Jesus_ , so you, really did it? I was hoping maybe you misunderstood what I meant but you really..."

"Not anymore!" Waverly rises from the couch, "Listen, please, Nicole. It was so long ago. We're not... we're not doing that anymore."

"Oh, _well thank fuck_ ," Nicole's voice is caught in her throat, half between a laugh and a scream, "You're not fucking your sister anymore. you only _used to_ fuck your sister."

Waverly cringes every time Nicole says it. It’s so violent, so vulgar.

"Please, Nicole, don't..."

"Don't what?" Nicole spits.

"Why do you have to say it like that, it's..."

"Like what, Waverly? Like the truth? Like I'm fucking _disgusted_? I _am_!"

All Waverly can see is Curtis, the way he swore, flew off the handle completely. How she just had to sit and bare it, couldn't say anything, digging her nails into her nails. There's two differences this time: it's better, because she's not alone.

It's worse, because Wynonna's there.

"Calm down, Haught," Wynonna says, and Waverly wants to tell her to shut up and sit down, she's only gonna make this worse. Wynonna doesn't even seem angry, but terrified. It's harder to be your sassy, unaffected self when you're so keenly aware that you're in the wrong. "Not so loud. What if someone hears?"

It's unlikely, given that Nicole lives a little bit away from her closest neighbours. But you never know who might overhear what, and it was already far too far out of hand. If anyone else found out...

_How the fuck did Tucker find out?_

"Gee, I don't know, Wynonna. Maybe you shoulda thought about that before you fucked Waverly."

Waverly curls more into herself with every second that it keeps going on. She wants to disappear. The one person... the one person who could never find out. And now.

Even Wynonna is quiet.

"God, how fucking old was she?" Nicole's tone is a bit different. Still outraged. Still disgusted. Now... betrayed, too. She's found a new route to go down, and Wynonna doesn't want to listen to it. "You said it ended. You said... and then before you were gone for three years, so... Jesus, _Wynonna_."

Wynonna's face is all scrunched up and her hands are wrapped tight around each other, trapping her thumbs tight in her fists. Everything Nicole is saying; every word feels sharp. Every word hits home. She's hitting on everything, every question Wynonna had, every problem and doubt and secret self-hating moment.

Nicole surges forward and the room gets a little smaller. Waverly, despite herself, is glad the heat is a little bit off herself.

"How fucking old was she?"

Wynonna looks down. She's shaking in the shoulders but her hair is too wild and too plentiful for Waverly to be able to tell if she's crying or not. Probably, though.

Nicole claps her hands together. Harsh, to scare them. It works. "Answer me!"

Every time Nicole moves she comes within inches of hitting one of them. Waverly wonders how long that will last, how long before the last boundary snaps and this turns into a flat-out fist fight in Nicole's living room. "Goddamn answer me or I swear to _God_ I'll arrest both of you."

Wynonna opens her mouth but only a choked sob comes out. Nicole has no patience for it. She lays hands on Wynonna, one above her collar bone. It's not pain, but it could be. _Oh_ , it could be.

"I was sixteen." Waverly interrupts. she's afraid Wynonna might just self-combust under all that heat, "The first time... when we..."

"Fucked." Nicole supplies, a bit too eagerly. Waverly wonders if she isn't getting something out of this, some sense of justice or vindication in watching how Waverly flinches. In making this just a bit harder for her. "That. I was sixteen, that's the age of consent, that's-"

"And you were _twenty-two_." Nicole cuts Waverly off and all the heats back on Wynonna. "You were an _adult_."

Wynonna looks up for the first time in a minute but quickly drops her head again. The light in the room feels three times to bright. It stings her wet eyes.

"I...she was... she was legal, though, and she was..." Wynonna remembers back to that night, to everything Waverly had said to convince her. How _easy_ she'd been to convince.

"She was sober that time, and it was..." Wynonna doesn't even know how to finish that. Her words sound weak even to herself. Grasping at straws to hang on.

"That time?" Nicole doesn't miss the slip. Wynonna bounces her leg up and down. Nicole doesn't need to say anything more, just waits, let's the tension grow. Eventually, Wynonna speaks.

"When I left. the first time I left. I didn't... nothing actually happened, I mean we didn't have sex, I mean..." and then it all comes out, all her secrets. All the worst of it. Wynonna never could tell anyone anything, not even Waverly, with their silent shared agreement not to speak about it.

"We kissed, at the party. When I graduated. I was eighteen. Waverly was...." Wynonna doesn't even need to say it. She just lets the awful math hang in the air, and knows Nicole's worked it out when her hand twitches next to her pistol.

"She was _twelve_?"

"Thirteen," Wynonna defends, like that makes it any better.

"Wynonna didn't rape me." Waverly says, as much to reassure Wynonna as it is to try and calm Nicole. "That night, we stopped. I... I broke her hand, when she..."

"When she _tried_ to rape you." 

Waverly closes her mouth and sits back in her chair. Her cheek stings like it's just been slapped.

"Do you know what I'd do to anyone... _anyone_... who did what you did? An eighteen-year-old, an adult? A _drunk_ thirteen-year-old? Do you know what I'd do? What it's my _job_ to do?"

Wynonna is acutely aware of the position of Nicole's gun on her hip. Waverly is, too.

"It's fucking illegal. It's like... illegal three times. Do you... Jesus... do you think it's different, because she's your sister? Do you think it's _better_?"

Wynonna isn't stupid enough to think it's better. But different, maybe. Different.

Shockingly, Waverly is the last one in the room to tear up. Wynonna's tears are all guilt and panic, Nicole's are all rage. Waverly cries because she just feels like she can't breathe.

"I swear Wynonna, if it weren't for the baby," Nicole glances at Wynonna's pregnant belly, "I'd kill you right now."

///

It was half rage and half bravado, but Nicole's rant had been enough to terrify both into a full confession. So, Nicole knows everything, every dirty detail. She'd worked them out over the most painful two hours either of the Earps has ever had to go through, including when their homestead was attack and their father murdered. Eventually the swearing had become less curse word and more punctuation mark, but that didn't make it much easier.

At some point they'd migrated from the living room to the kitchen. Wynonna was sat and the table with Nicole across from her, watching her. Waverly leaned against the counter top, her hands pressed hard into the wood.

Nicole sat with all the facts of it in one hand, and all her options in the other. This was the furthest from what she'd been prepared for today. She'd thought when Tucker pulled up that he was just there to make a few more tasteful comments, but then he told her that. Nicole wanted to call him a liar, to throw him out of her house. She listened, though, because despite how awful he was... something about the story was too bizarre and too specific to just be made up.

And then Wynonna and Waverly showed up with the confirmation.

"What are you gonna do?" Waverly asks.

Her voice is smaller than Nicole's ever heard it. she rubs at her temple.

"I know what I _should_ do," she says, "Arrest you both. _Double_ arrest Wynonna."

Just then, Calamity Jane wonders into the room. She stretches out her body like she's just woken from a nap, and makes a beeline for Waverly's legs. She rubs on them, intertwining between her legs. Apparently, she doesn't know how to take the temperature of the room.

"If you have to. We won't fight." Waverly says. Wynonna gives her a what-the-fuck look, which Waverly doesn't even acknowledge. "But it sounds like you don't wanna do that."

Nicole brings a hand to the back of her head and rub where her spine meets her skull. She hasn't had a headache like this since she was a teenager.

"No, I don't want to throw my girlfriend in prison, actually."

Nicole taps her fingers on the table, "Wynonna, though... you're another story."

Calamity Jane meows from her place on the floor. Even she looks confused about what's going on.

"You said... it's over, right? How'd it end?"

"Curtis found out," Waverly says, "He... caught us. It was bad. Wynonna left town."

Wynonna tenses at the memory. That day alone was half the reason she had to drink to forget.

"That was three years ago?"

"More than three." Wynonna adds. She knows the exact date. She could almost count the hours.

"Alright," Nicole exhales. Her breathe is shaky and unstable but it she's less scattered, "Alright, okay. Here's what's gonna happen." Nicole rubs her hands on the table like she's smoothing out a map, "I don't have to tell you that this never happens again. Or, God, maybe I do. Never," Nicole slaps one hands down on the table, "Never fucking again. Are we clear?"

Wynonna nods as much as she can force herself to.

"Right. Second," Nicole chews on her lip like she's considering something. Her eyes land on Waverly. She's just a bit softer, just for a second. The most painful part is that she still loves Waverly, she'll forgive her. Wynonna can see it. "You're not living with Wynonna anymore. Either you move out of the Homestead or she does."

"What?" Wynonna snaps her head up, "That's...you can't - "

"I am. You two aren't living together."

"You don't have the _right_ , you can’t-"

"You're real quick to righteous indignation, Wynonna, given that the reason for all this is what _you_ did."

Wynonna snaps her jaw shut. Waverly's eyes flick between the two of them like she's watching a tennis match.

Wynonna looks to Waverly for help. There's no way Nicole will listen to Wynonna.

"Nicole," she stops herself from saying babe, on the chance it might just make Nicole even angrier, "I know that you're... upset."

" _Upset_?" Nicole raises both eyebrows, "I think I have a fucking right to be."

Waverly waves a hand in front of her face, "I know, I know, you do, I'm not..." Waverly bites on her lip, "But it's been over for years, and where would Wynonna go, anyway? She's the heir, she needs to be on the Homestead. It's the only place safe from the Revenants, we can't just,"

"Then Wynonna can stay there. Alone. You move in with me."

Waverly leans back and almost hits her head on the overhead cabinet, "…that's... a big step, don't you think?"

"And a bit soon." Wynonna adds, and Waverly shoots her a glance that tells her to shut it.

Nicole shrugs, "I guess plans change when you find out about your girlfriend fucking her sister.”

"Okay, just because you have the high ground, doesn't mean you have to-"

"Shut up, Wynonna," Waverly scowls at her and some part of that seems to calm Nicole, at least a little, "It's just that.... it's not really practical for right now, you know, and I understand that you're not comfortable-"

"Of course, I'm not comfortable-"

"-but she's my sister and I need to see-"

"Oh, so she's your sister when that's convenient? And your girlfriend when it's not?"

"-please just let me speak!" Waverly raises her voice and Nicole is taken aback. She pushes her chair out from the table, scraping harshly on the floor. She doesn't seem completely outraged, though. Waverly had a certain in that Wynonna will never have.

Nicole goes quiet for the first time in the better part of the hour. Waverly's quite too; she hadn't expected to say that, to get this far, and now she doesn't even know what she was so desperate for Nicole to hear.

Nicole leaves it for just long enough for Waverly to get a bit embarrassed.

"The bottom line is..." Nicole's voice is steady and sure, "You're not living with your ex. Any ex. You wouldn't be able to live with Champ, either. Doesn't matter, the..." Nicole does a motion with her hand and it almost distracted from the disgust on her face, "the history, there. I'm not... that is so not okay. How could you live together after all that? Do you really think that's normal?"

Wynonna clears her throat but doesn't say anything.

"I'll help you get your basics," Nicole says, "The rest we'll get later. You're not sleeping there. Not with her. Alone."

Waverly despises this part of Nicole. It's controlling, it's demeaning, it's... it's something Champ might do, honestly. But she can't even blame her, she can't... the facts are the facts, even if they don't feel true, and Wynonna is her ex... _girlfriend?_ Something.

Wynonna laughs, empty and cold. Disbeleiveing. "you're not, that's not..." she looks to Waverly for an ally, but finds nothing, "Waverlys not a child, you can't... you can't tell her who to live with, and you can't just separate-"

"Watch me. This is the best offer, the only way you're getting out of this without prison. I'm being very fucking nice in giving you this option, Wynonna, and you're really making me recon-"

"Okay!" Waverly cuts in. Wynonna just makes it worse every time she speaks, and having her in the room when she's trying to calm Nicole down is totally unproductive.

"I think you should go." Waverly says, "Back to the Homestead."

Nicole can't help but smirk, just a little. Waverly gravitates closer to Nicole's side of the kitchen, and Wynonna doesn't know if it's a play or... what.

She doesn't move.

"Go home, Wynonna," Waverly gestures toward the door with her eyes. Wynonna's eyes are pleading. Everything Waverly wants to say, she can't. "I need to talk to Nicole."

Wynonna leaves the room.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to live under a microscope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for commenting! Apparently my message actually worked, because I got like sixteen comments where I normally get about two. Please knows that that same message is implied before every chapter: author's don't really like asking for comments, because it feels desperate and annoying, but we always want them and they always help. Thanks again! Also: full canon divergence from here on out.

"That it?" Nicole plunks down the last box into the open tray of the pickup, and dusts her hands off against her jacket as she bends back up.

"For now." Waverly approaches with a bag over her shoulder, heavy with old books, weighing her down in the snow. She lets Nicole take it from her and put that, too, in the tray. Waverly winces when she sees how hard Nicole puts it down, but doesn't anything.

"I'll come back next week." Nicole says, "Just give me a list of everything to get."

"I'll just do it, it's fine," Waverly says, "Besides, I'm the one with the truck."

"We just had this whole conversation. You're not gonna be alone with her."

Waverly's face burns as she stares down at her feet. Her shoes are snow dusted and shiny.

"I don't think you should be alone with her, either," Waverly says. Nicole pauses just outside of the driver’s seat, and raises an eyebrow. “Only one of you might leave.”

Nicole rolls her eyes, but doesn’t deny it.

///

The boxes end up stacked throughout the house, spread from the entry way through to the bedroom. Only some of them were labelled: the rest they’ll have to open to check. Waverly brought a bag with a couple of changes of clothes for the first few days. She already had a toothbrush at Nicole’s.

"It's late," Nicole says, "We should... you know, get to bed. Leave the rest until the morning."

Waverly surveys everything still left to be done, but nods anyway. She doesn't really feel like being anything less than agreeable with Nicole. She'd hardly made any progress in the hours she's talked to her, but it was more than she could have hoped for if Wynonna was still there. She's managed to convince Nicole not to sift back six years through her email history, for example, but she still insisted on being able to check her texts from Wynonna and listen in on any phone calls.

Nicole goes off to the bedroom first, leaving Waverly standing in the kitchen. Seconds later, Waverly hears the water turn on as Nicole brushes her teeth.

Waverly swears her clothes had gotten tighter during the day. There was no way her outfit feels the same as it had when she put it on that morning.

The house is quiet. A window somewhere must be open, because Waverly hears sounds from outside way clearer than they should be. There's a coyote - what she hopes is a coyote - howling in the distance. The wind is harsh and even it seems to be screaming at her. Waverly pours a tall glass of water and drinks it in one go. She drops it in the sink and joins Nicole in the bedroom, feeling the liquid move in her stomach.

///

She ends up on her back, pinned by Nicole with her hands above her head. They've been in this position before, lots of times, but it's different. Nicole isn't necessarily rougher, and Waverly supposed she should be thankful for that. Almost the opposite. All her actions feel hollow. She pushes down on Waverly and kisses at her neck, her collar bone, but it feels mechanical.

Waverly's face pulls into a frown, which luckily Nicole misses. Her breathe is coming out quicker, but not in a way that sounds hot or sweet. Nicole works her was back up Waverly's body in kisses until they're face to face again.

"What did you do with her?" Nicole asks.

Waverly tries to sink deeper in the bed, like that could put more distance between her and Nicole. Suddenly she's entirely aware of how much taller than her Nicole is, how tiny she is in comparison, how Nicole's shadows blocks all the light from reaching her.

"Nicole..." Waverly tries to bring a hand up but Nicole keeps pinning her down at the wrist, "We already... I told you."

Waverly turns her face to the side and feels Nicole's hair tickling across her jawline.

"I know you had sex with her," Another kiss on where her jaw connects to her neck. Wet.

"Tell me how."

Waverly loses Nicole's eyes again as she ducks down and kisses under her jaw. One of Nicole's hands releases her wrist and goes straight from the hem of her shirt.

"N-Nic-Nicole," Waverly starts.

"What? Are you shy, now?"

Nicole lefts at the hem of Waverly's shirt and then sits back, rises off her, so Waverly can take it off herself. It's the first time in ten minutes Waverly takes a full breath.

Nicole nods at her to hurry.

Waverly lifts her shirt up and over her head, and tosses it to the side. It catches on Nicole's side table, and doesn't quite make it to the floor. Nicole descends again the second it's gone.

"Did you do this?" Nicole runs her hand up from Waverly's abdomen, lays it between the valley of Waverly's breasts, then slowly right.

"Did she touch you here?" Nicole starts to rub Waverly though her bra. It's light touches, but somehow that makes it feel more intense. Waverly feels it all the way down. This is what's getting her wet tonight, apparently. She keeps her hands where Nicole had them pinned even though Nicole releases her.

Nicole stops the touching.

"I asked you something."

Waverly nods.

Nicole pauses, and puts her hands back.

"Where else did she touch you?"

Waverly face is hot from all the blood rushing there. Her lips are an exaggerated but natural red, partly open. Nicole kisses her.

"Where do you think?" Waverly breathes out, half chokes on the end.

Nicole raises an eyebrow.

"Where did she touch you, Waverly?"

Nicole draws her hand back down. Past Waverly's navel, to between her thighs. She doesn't bother taking her own clothes off, or all of Waverly's.

"Everywhere."

Nicole undoes the button of Waverly’s short and opens them up just enough. She slides two fingers inside and pushes up, up.

“Did she touch you here?” Nicole scissors her fingers out and Waverly rolls her hips, “Inside?”

Waverly flinches, then moans.

“Take that as a yes.”

All at once Nicole withdraws, and Waverly is empty again. Nicole’s heat and shadow leave and the bed is empty before Waverly knows what’s happening. She’s shirtless and panting on Nicole’s bed, and Nicole is just standing beside it, on hand tracing the curve of her alarm clock.

“What?” Waverly blinks slowly into awareness, sleep and surprised.

"What are you..."

"I'm gonna sleep downstairs." Nicole says. She takes Waverly’s shirt off its half hanging position on the nightstand and hands it back to Waverly, but averts her eyes, as if she hasn’t seen it all already.

"Nicole, wait, why-"

Nicole stops by the closet to grab a spare blanket off the top shelf.

"Goodnight, Waverly," she says. Waverly watches her but doesn't move to try and stop her beyond a few more questions.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

///

They don't speak on the whole drive there. Waverly tries not to spend too much time trying to figure out what the hell Nicole might be thinking, but end up driving herself half-crazy with it, anyway.

Riding in the cruiser is more comfortable to her than she'd thought riding in a police care could ever be, normally. Not today. Nicole is so focused on the road. She doesn't even turn the radio on.

Nicole pulls up out front of the station and waits for an uncomfortable period. Waverly gets restless, and reaches for the clip to release her seatbelt

"Wynonna's in there." Nicole says.

Waverly sinks back fully into her seat.

"She does work in there."

Waverly looks over to Nicole, but Nicole just stares straight ahead.

"And so do you." Nicole says.

"And so do I."

Nicole drums her fingers on the steering wheel, sighs. It's visible in the cold. She didn't put the heater on the drive over, either.

"Dolls will be there, too." Waverly says, trying to get ahead of Nicole's concerns. If it helps her to hear it... then fine. At least this way she skips the recap in the middle.

"Yeah." Nicole says. She rubs at the bridge of her nose, "Yeah, okay."

///

They normally part ways in the hallway, but today, Nicole walks Waverly all the way to what used to be Black Badge Headquarters.

Nicole knocks on the door once out of habit, before remembering that she's moved past that, even if she's not officially a member of Black Badge. Wynonna's voice answers. Waverly lays a hand on Nicole's forearm to keep her calm.

It'd been all she could do last night to try and keep peace between the two of them. Nicole seemed totally on the edge, and Wynonna always seemed on the verge of making some smart comment that might push her over it.

"Hey Waves," Wynonna calls through the door. Nicole knows it's unfair to expect that Wynonna should use a _professional_ tone with Waverly, but it still rubs her the wrong way to hear that familiarity in the nickname. any reminder of their relationship, familial or platonic or otherwise, isn't anything Nicole wants to see or hear.

Waverly steps through the door first and Nicole doesn’t entirely follow her. She hangs back with one hand on the door frame, higher up than natural, making herself look bigger than she is.

"Where's Dolls?" Nicole peers into the room, looking entirely over Wynonna.

Wynonna pauses for a second before answering. Nicole’s hardly said to word to her in the past twenty-four hours that wasn’t a threat.

“Not in yet,” Wynonna pauses sifting through the box of files she has on the table, midway through the letter ‘G’.

Nicole’s hand tightens on the door frame. Waverly goes to the side of the room furthest from Wynonna, and makes a show of logging onto a computer.

“When’s he coming in?” Nicole asks.

“How should I know?” Wynonna says. She turns her attention back to the files, flicking through them one by one with her long fingers, black painted nails.

"What about Doc?" Nicole says. Waverly looks up and tries to make it look like she isn't she bites her lip.

"Who knows anything about Doc. Maybe at Shorty's?" Wynonna tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, like none of this is an issue, could even be an issue, but the way she clears her throat at the end gives her away.

"So... it's just," Nicole leans further into the room. She drops her hand from the door frams and crosses her arms across her chest, "...just the two of you?"

Waverly shuffles uncomfortably. The computer makes some odd whirring noise, and Waverly types something out. the keys sound way too loud.

"Yeah, that's not gonna fly. Waves, come on," Nicole gestures with her head to the way they came from.

"Hey," Wynonna abandons her tasks again. This time she withdraws her hands completely, losing her place in the box, "She works here, Nicole. We _have to_ be here. Don't be unreasonable."

"Unreasonable?" Nicole raises an eyebrow, "I think I'm being more than reasonable, given that I only found out sixteen hours ago that you two were-"

"Jesus!" Waverly drops all pretence of acting like she's working on anything else. "We're in the Police Station, Nicole. Maybe save the recap?"

Nicole tightens her jaw like she's trying to chew the air.

"Whatever," she says, "Then I'll stay in here too."

"Don't you have, you know, a job?" Wynonna says, "I fought the law and the law was on a smoke break doesn't have the same ring to it." The smile Nicole gives is small, see through, papery.

"I don't want you alone together." Nicole walks into the room and closes the door behind her. She pulls out a chair on the opposite side of the table Wynonna is standing at. Waverly raises both eyebrows behind Nicole's head but Wynonna catches it, and raises hers back.

"What was that?" Nicole quickly turns back to face Waverly.

"That! Just now." Nicole pushes back on her chair and it tilts back so quick that for a second Nicole loses her gravity. "I saw that. Wynonna making faces."

"Nicole, it was nothing, I don't know what-"

"Are you talking about me? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, baby, I don't know-"

"You did!" Nicole points back at Nicole, "Why'd she make that face? Are you two, fucking," Nicole pulls her arm in and her whole body suddenly seems more tense, like it's holding more energy than it's supposed to, "Flirting? Right fucking over my head?"

"Nicole, no, oh my god," Waverly abandons the computers and steps closer to Nicole. She lays on arms on her shoulder, the only zone that she's sure is safe to touch. Waverly ducks and turns her head to find Nicole's eyes.

"Then what, Waverly? Why are you two fucking making eyes like I'm not in the room?"

"Chill, Haught, " Wynonna says, "I know you're all defensive, but can't be comfortable to deal with that stick in your ass."

Nicole opens her mouth and lets out a dry, humourless laugh. "Oh, wow. You really don't wanna push me Wynonna, not today. I've got the judge on speed dial. I can have a warrant on you faster than-"

"And Waverly, too?" Wynonna says, "You gonna throw the baby out with the bath water?"

Waverly shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She feels Nicole and Wynonna's eyes on her, bearing down, and doesn't meet either of them.

"Well, it's not like she's entirely innocent ei-"

The door opens wide and Dolls is in the doorway. He doesn't look up as he enters, and almost walks straight into Nicole.

"Oh," he says, "Haught. Didn't expect you here."

"Yeah," Nicole gives one last glare are Wynonna, "I was just going. I think Wynonna's not feeling well. Keep an eye on her, will ya?"

///

"I need to talk to you," Wynonna drops a pile of unrelated files in front of Waverly, half using the sound to cover up what she's saying. Dolls is busy with something on the other side of the room, but his secret agent training left his with some pretty advanced observation skills.

Waverly takes the files from her and starts rifling through one. Wynonna walks around to the other side of the desk like she's looking at them with her.

"Yeah, sure. I'm right here." Waverly says.

Wynonna shakes her head. "No, it's..." Wynonna tilts away from Dolls and draws a line down to her now very obviously pregnant abdomen, "...personal."

Waverly draws her eyebrows in closer together.

"...what..."

"Alone." Wynonna says.

"Yep," Waverly pops the end sound, "That's a bit easier said than done right now."

"I know, hot pants' got you under lock and key." Wynonna drums her fingers

on the desk. The habit isn't normally that disturbing, but the beat is just to off to be calming. Waverly stops her by laying her small hand over Wynonna's bigger one. Wynonna's whole body stops with it.

"Doesn't Nicole work late some days?"

"..yeah?"

"Tonight?" Wynonna leans in, hopeful.

Waverly looks away in thought for a second, looks back, and nods.

///

"Can I... get you anything?" Waverly's silhouette in the doorway, with her big parka still on, cuts an almost comically disproportioned figure. "Water, coke, bee-" Waverly catches herself, “Anything?”

Wynonna shakes her head, and chuckles.   She points at the still unfinished cup of tea Waverly had given her when they arrived, refusing her coffee. “Still good.” She pats the spot next to her on Nicole's couch. Waverly takes her scarf off first as she enters the room and hangs it up. Her jacket she keeps on until she reaches the couch, then takes it off and lays it across her legs. Something about the weight of it feels necessary.

"Is the... temperature okay?" Waverly notices that Wynonna doesn't move to take her own jacket off, "I can put it up, if you're cold, or-"

"Waverly." Wynonna says. "Talk, remember?"

Waverly clears her throat. "Right." It's odd, trying to play friendly host to a person she isn't supposed to see in a house that isn't hers.

"So... what is it? Is the baby okay? Are you?"

"What? Oh, yeah, the ba - it's fine. Me too. I feel.... fine."

Waverly waits for her to continue. She doesn't.

"What's going on?"

“It's not Doc’s,” Wynonna sets the cup down so hard a bit sloshes over the rim. Waverly watches it spill.

“It's not…” her brow furrows, “What?”

“The timing. It doesn't match up. Doc was… too long ago.

"The timing..." Waverly is a few steps behind her mentally, an unusual place for her to be. "Wait, I don't... who, then?"

"It'd have been a couple months ago," Wynonna says, "I mean, best guess. And Doc was before that."

"And you haven't since?"

"Nope," Wynonna pops the 'p'.

"So it's not Doc's?"

"That's what I said."

"Yeah, sorry, I-" Waverly shakes her head once and pauses in the middle of the motion, "I don't understand, was it... Dolls? You weren't... I don't remember any other guy."

"There was no guy."

"I don't... understand." Waverly says, but with the way Wynonna won't stop looking at her, Waverly has a bad feeling that she's beginning to.

"There was no guy," Wynonna says again. Her tea’s cooling down so fast that the steams already gone. "Waverly, there was..." Wynonna stirs it even though it's already fine, anything to do with her hands, anywhere to look that isn't at Waverly, "There was only you."

Waverly's face pulls into a confused sort of smile, hesitant but interested. "Wynonna...what are you saying? That's... I don't have..."

"I think it's yours." Wynonna stops the motion of the spoon and the tea takes longer to stop, the whirlpool she'd made in the middle settling down. "I don't know how. I could be wrong. But it was when... with the demon. I know that sounds..." Wynonna gestured between the two of them, "Impossible. But God, these days, what isn't?"

"I'm..." Waverly's jaw is dropped as she looks around the room, half expecting to find a hidden camera or someone yelling 'punkd!' "What? That's... not right..."

"I don't know." Wynonna says, "I don't know. I just know that with the timeline...  I'm not the best at math, but I checked seven times, Waverly. And my calculator can't be as dumb as I am."

Waverly stares straight ahead. She’s acutely aware of how Nicole’s couch feels different than hers. _Theirs_. This isn’t her home. Waverly puts her arms on the rest and her hand creeps around the edge. She grips at it so hard she feels like her fingernails might break.

“I don’t know… what this means.” Wynonna says. She’s talking about what it makes their child. She’s talking about the occult. She’s talking about the demons and the magic and the curse and the fucked up situation with Nicole, and most of all, she’s talking about _them_.

Waverly pulls her jacket up against her chest. She folds it over her arm and infront of her organs like it might somehow protect her from what she’s hearing.

“This baby...” she asks, “What is it?”

Her eyes find Wynonna’s and Waverly is aware of how blue her eyes look. She imagines a baby with those eyes, that nose, those lips. Those _lips_.

“Ours.”

Waverly watches them move so closely she almost doesn’t hear. She doesn’t even notice she’s leaning in until she’s close enough to fall into Wynonna’s gravity. She smells different in a way only Waverly would ever notice. Wynonna puts a hand on her cheek. Her skin is hotter than Waverly’s. The room is dark.

And then it isn’t.

“What the _fuck_!”

Wynonna jumps away and too her feet. She knocks the coffee table in her movement and some of her tea spills.

Nicole’s hand is still on the light switch. Her other is just inches from her gun.

Wynonna gapes like a fish at Waverly. Nicole doesn’t wait for her to speak.

“Get out,” she says, “Get out! Before I fucking shoot you.”

Wynonna doesn’t even try to push it. She swipes her phone off the table and stuffs it into her pocket while she’s walking. There are two arching doorways from Nicole’s living room and Wynonna purposely takes the empty one, trying to keep a wider arc away from Nicole. Nicole still almost lunges at her as she passes.

“Get the fuck out of my house!”

Waverly pulls hers legs up onto the couch, close to her chest.

“And don’t fucking come back here.”

The door slams shut.

The shouting doesn’t stop for a good few minutes, but it gets more and more distant. Nicole follows Wynonna outside and doesn’t stop until she’s good and gone.

She doesn’t hear an engine start. Waverly won’t realise until hours later that she drove them there: Wynonna must have walked home.

When Nicole gets back, the tea’s gone cold. Waverly tosses it out in the sink.

///

"Nothing happened," Waverly’s been pushing her pasta around on the plate for so long it's started to go cold. She's hardly eaten any of it: between Nicole and the news she might be Wynonna’s baby daddy, she doesn't have much of an appetite. "Nothing's going to happen. It's over. We were... young."

Nicole takes a long sip from her glass of water, peering at Waverly over the edge.

"Young. Yeah, didn't miss that part," Nicole says, "Trust me."

"I just mean... it wasn't... it was a mistake."

"No shit."

"Haven't you ever done something you regret, Nicole? Jesus. I know you hate this and I know you hate Wynonna and maybe you hate me a little, too, but I can't un do it."

"Can't 'un _do'_ Wynonna. Right." Nicole finishes her food before Waverly's even started hers.

"What do you want me to say?"

Waverly puts her knife and fork down,

"I'm sorry, Nicole. I'm sorry I ever did it. I won't do it again. I wish you never had to find out. I wish I never did it. I don't know what else I can... I want to make this easier for you, but you can't just keep on-"

"Keep on what?"

Waverly sighs, rubs her temples.

"If you can't forgive me, Nicole, then this is just _pointless_."

Calamity Jane meows from somewhere deeper in the house. Nicole looks over and sees that her bowl is empty. Waverly follows her eyes.

"I'll get it," Waverly says. Her voice is more tired than Nicole's ever heard it. So different from that girl in Shory's with the beer stained shirt. More different than with the goo, too. Even when she was possessed, she wasn't this empty.

Waverly bends down to get Calamity Jane's food from its place in the cupboard under the sink.

Waverly looks good in her house, Nicole thinks. Her clothes are the same she's always had, but the light is different in the kitchen at that hour than Nicole's ever seen. Waverly knows where everything is, seems more at home than is reasonable given the reasons for her recent move. She cooks and she cleans and she tidies things up that Nicole doesn't even think about tidying. Her boxes are still strewn around the house, will be for a few more weeks, but she moves like she owns the place.

Or, not like she owns in. Like it's a temple. Like Nicole does, and she doesn't want her angry.

"I'll do whatever I can to make it better," Waverly rises again with the cat food bag in her hands and opens in. Her back is turned to Nicole while she talks, "I will. I'll say sorry every day. But I need to know if,” Waverly pauses and Nicole sees her shoulders rise and fall. She thinks it’s an inaudible sigh, but when she talks again it’s clear she’s crying, “- If you can forgive me, because if you really can’t, if you know you can’t, you have to tell me or else it’s just cruel otherwise."

"Stop crying," Nicole rises from her chair, and walks up behind Waverly. It's a bit too fast a movement and Waverly flinches the second before Nicole touches her. Nicole touches her, turns her around, pulls Waverly into her chest. Waverly lets out a harsh, dry sob, "I don't know." Nicole smoothes down Waverly's hair with her hand, and looks over her head out of the window, "I don't know if I can. I don't know what's gonna happen. I want to forgive you. But Jesus, Wave, this is a fucking lot. I found out yesterday. I need a minute."

Waverly pulls out of the hug. The touch is comforting but the words aren't, and the juxtaposition feels wrong.

"This isn't something I know how to deal with. You fu-" Nicole catches the way Waverly braces herself again, and catches her, "You slept with your sister. God, why couldn't you just cheat like everyone else?"

“I’m sorry.”

Nicole bend down to pick up Calamity Jane’s bowl, and puts it in front of Waverly to fill.

“I need time.” Nicole says.

Waverly nods, eagerly. “That’s okay. Anything. I’ll do anything to make it better, baby, _anything_.”

The way she says it, and the way she lays a hand on Nicole’s chest afterward, Nicole knows she’s talking about sex. Nicole takes her hand and kisses it, but pushes her away.

“What?” Waverly says, self-conscious.

“Not tonight.” Nicole takes the food and the bowl from Waverly and starts filling it herself.

“What about last night? Last night you didn’t… either.”

Nicole takes the bowl and puts it back in its right spot. Calamity Jane apparently has a sixth sense for this, because she seems to materialise out of nowhere seconds later, and heads straight for it.

“Every time…” Nicole starts. She’s more choked up than she expected to sound. She starts again. “I think about you. And then I think about her, and what you did. What you _let_ her do to you.” Nicole wipes at non-existent sweat on her brow with her sleeve pulled up over her hand. “I’m _disgusted_.”

Waverly can’t even pretend that isn’t agony to hear. “Disgusted,” she repeats, “by me.”

“By what you did.”

Between this and her conversation with Wynonna, whatever the fuck _that_ means, it’s several hundred times too much. There’s heat just behind her eyes and she’s barely keeping the tears back. Waverly half hopes that Nicole will end up taking the couch again tonight, so she’ll have some time to cry. She doesn’t want Nicole to see her cry. Not over this.

“It’s the same thing though, isn’t it?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A blast from someone's past.

The benefit of moving to a small town like Purgatory, with its many farmhouses and large plots, is that no one really gives a fuck what you do on your own land.

Nicole set up a home shooting range a couple of weeks after she moved in. She hadn't used it much, especially in the winter when the cold in her hands made getting the bullets in uncomfortable and shaky. Hadn't used it for months since she met Waverly. Until the day she rose before dawn and started shooting at the beer cans she'd drained the night before.

The hangover isn't that bad, but it's there. The second the sun starts to peak up, it's already too cold. Nicole convinces herself that there's some science behind the idea that cold with help with a hangover, and hopes the placebo is enough to get her through.

She checks her gun again, checks the safety, checks it loaded, even though she already knows it is. Nicole takes the weaver stance and shoots once, twice, three time. She's tight in the chest, too tight, and the third misses _bad_.

The shots ring out clear across the morning, with no other sounds to compete with. Nicole drops the gun and sighs: she knows all the mistakes she's making, can hear the voice from the academy in her ear, all the problems with her stance. They're rookie mistakes, and that's why she's so imprecise.

But Nicole doesn't want to be precise.

She just wants to fucking shoot something.

She thinks about flicking the light on and how Wynonna pulled away from Waverly's face. She didn't see them kiss but she knows, she _knows._

Nicole shoots straight for the snow under her target until the gun is almost empty. The force close to the stand is enough to knock the can off, anyway. She spends her last bullet on it.

Nicole walks the few feet back to where her ammo bag is and bends down to rifle through it. She gets the rounds and rises back up.

Nicole doesn't even stack the cans back up. She'll just shoot them where they lay on the ground, or aim for the wood they rested on. What-fucking-ever. It doesn't matter what she shoots at. It's her house, and the one benefit of being forced out of home at such a young age was that Nicole learned to simple pleasure of being able to do whatever the fuck you wanted to, within reason. If she didn't think it was a selfish, ego driver expression of toxic masculinity, she might go hunting too. It was just her and her bullets and if she wants to spend the whole day shooting, she will, _thank you very much._

Except... it isn't just her house anymore. And while she'd been depleting her ammo, someone else had been in the house, hearing every shot go off.

Almost on cue, Nicole hears the door open. Her back is to it from where she's standing, and she rolls her eyes. Waverly's clothes aren't appropriate for running.

"Nicole!" Waverly’s voice is high and, for the first time in forever, annoying. "What's happening?" Nicole turns just before Waverly reaches her, and Waverly seems to relax a little at seeing that she's entirely uninjured. Waverly looks past her at the range, the cans on the floor, the splintered wood. The gun in her hand.

She takes a step back.

"I almost had a heart attack!" Waverly clutches at her check to demonstrate. Normally, the dramatics would be endearing. _Normally._

Nicole doesn't answer her, just checks that her gun's empty and put the safety back on.

"It's pretty early," Waverly says, "Pretty cold, too. What're you doing out here?"

Nicole puts the gun back on her hip holster and realises just how under dressed Waverly really is. She doesn't like the cold at the best of times, with the benefit of a fleeces and jackets and parkas. She must have run out of the house without stopping to think, because all she's wearing are sweatpants and a top that makes it blatantly obvious that her nipples are hard.

Waverly crosses her arms over them and rubs at her biceps to generate heat.

Nicole zip up the ammo bag and picks it up.

"Doesn't matter," she says, "I'm done."

Nicole starting walking in the direction of the house. Waverly lingers for a few seconds before following her.

"Wait, Nicole, what's wrong, you're-"

"What's wrong?" Nicole swings around fast. She lowers the arm carrying the ammo bag, lets it just limp by her side. "What's fucking wrong? Oh," the chuckle is entirely humourless, angry, sarcastic. And then even that small levity is gone, "Wynonna was here last night, Waverly. Why was she here?"

"I.. I just, I had to see her, I-"

"Bullshit. If I didn't come home early, what would have happened?" They didn't have much snowfall over night, because Nicole's sure she can still see the messy tracks from where she quite literally chases Wynonna off in the snow, "Did you invite her over to fuck you?"

"No! Jesus, I told you it was over."

"Why, then!" Nicole picks the bag back up and hikes it up over her shoulder, "Don't act like I'm crazy for thinking it. Not with what you did. You don't get to... to do that, and then gaslight me when I walk in on you two days later like-"

"You didn't 'walk in on us', Nicole." Nicole doesn't need to see Waverly to know she's got that stance, that stance that means she's standing her ground. It's the most backbone she's shown in a while. Nicole faces her.

"What then?" Nicole demands, "Why was she here? What was so important and so secret you had to go behind my back?"

"It was private."

"Private? Oh, no no _no_ ," Nicole says, "No, _fuck_ that. You forfeited private. I'm not going to wrestle your phone out of your hands, and I'm not gonna beat a confession out if you, but there's a fucking price for keeping secrets.”

When all of this started, Waverly never thought they'd get here. Nicole, with her constant respectfulness. Always there, never pushy. She even respected Champ, up until the moment she didn't. It was all trust, all truth, all the way through. This isn't the same relationship it was a week ago. They might as well be two different people.

"You said, last night, that you wanted me to trust you again," Nicole says, "You said you'd do anything to make it better. Prove it. Prove I can trust you. Just tell me what she was doing here."

The cold gets worse and worse with every second she's out there. Waverly forces herself to fight through it, and hopes her shudder doesn't come off as weakness.

"She needed to talk to me about the baby." Waverly says.

"The baby?" Nicole repeats, "What about the baby?"

"Just... the baby."

"Waverly!" it's so unnecessarily loud that Waverly actual jumps back, "Stop fucking _lying_. If you want this to work, Waverly... if we want this to work...If _anything_ can be salvaged…" Nicole tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear, "then you have to be _completely_ honest with me. I'll find out if you're not. I mean, God, I already know the worst of it." Nicole says.

Waverly touches the side of her face. Her skin is feels colder than metal. Nicole leans in, narrows her eyes.

"Right, Waverly?"

Waverly coughs and wrings her hands out.

" _Right_?"

"I think the baby's mine."

Nicole shoots back up straight in a second flat. "The...the... what?"

"Wynonna's baby," Waverly nods, "something with the demon. When she was possessed. I don't know. Might be wrong."

"Wh..wha...what do you... huh?"

Seeing Nicole that confused - Nicole who only just found out about demons walking on earth, who took the news in her stride -  is _something_.

"You don't have a dick," Nicole says, when her face unsticks enough to talk, "What? I mean, I've had a look under the hood. I'd know."

Waverly wants to roll her eyes but stops herself.

"Yeah, I don't. But I transferred to demon to her. Things happen when demons get involved. Would that really be the strangest thing?"

"How the... How could that happen?"

Waverly shrugs her shoulders. "We don't even know if it did happen, we don't know anything, Wynonna just thinks that because of the timing tha-"

"The timing?" Nicole’s confusion makes way into anger. She doesn't understand entirely what's going on, but she understands where it's headed, what's it implied. Waverly hadn't even thought about what she was saying. "What does she mean, the timing?"

Waverly swallows. Her hands are sweaty despite the cold and she wipes them down on her pants.

"She... she means, that..."

"You said it was over."

"It is!" Waverly says.

"No, that doesn't- you said the timing, what do you mean, what.. the timing?"

Waverly doesn't say anything. She casts her eyes down. It tells Nicole enough.

"You lied," Nicole says, "You fucking lied. You slept with her. You said it ended years ago, you said it was over, you said-"

"It's over, baby, I swear it's over, I didn't lie, I-"

"Jesus, stop fucking digging yourself deeper, Waverly," Nicole walks closer to Waverly until Waverly feels the need to back up. "How long ago? When did you fuck her? Did you - " Nicole rubs at her temple and Waverly can see the tension in her arm, all wound up like a spring. She wants to hit.

Waverly is afraid.

"Did you fuck her while we were together?"

Waverly's mouth gapes.

"It wasn't... it wasn't like that Nicole, I wouldn't... I'd never hurt you like that, I-"

“Wouldn’t you?” Nicole spits, “Two days ago, I would’ve agreed. I would’ve… you’re the _nicest person in Purgatory_ , remember?”

Nicole drops her arms down by her side. She doesn’t even need to strike. Waverly flinches with her whole body.

“But now? _Oh_ ,” Nicole shakes her head, “I don’t know anything about what you _would_ do. You’re _not_ who I thought you were. _Not_ who I fell in love with.”

Waverly stops dead in her tracks. For Nicole, realising what she’s said is enough to slow her down, too. It’s the first time she’s said it, the first… and Waverly can’t be happy. Can’t even be relieved.

Waverly wonders how this all got so _ugly_ _._

“I was unconscious,” Waverly says, “when it…happened. I didn’t cheat on you.”

Nicole backs off immediately. It’s not that the tension leaves her, just that it shifts.

“You were…unconscious…during sex?”

Waverly nods.

“Jesus, Waverly, you know there’s a word for that.”

“Yeah,” Waverly says, “It wasn’t her. She was possessed. Neither of us were... were _there_ , really.

" _Jesus_. This whole situation is beyond fucked up."

"Yeah, I know."

Waverly's face is red from the cold and her eyes are just a bit glassy. Her hair's still messed from sleep, and if Nicole stays quiet she's sure she can hear her teeth chattering. Waverly looks so... so small, so feminine, so young and lost in the winter morning. It doesn't make sense.

"So, will the baby have… you know.... there are issues, when the parents are..." Nicole gestures with two hands, brings them close together, rubs them. For a hand gesture, it's pretty graphic.

"I don't.... know," Waverly says, "I don't know anything. We don't know if that's it, we wouldn't know until we did a blood test who the fa.... _other parent_ , actually is. If it even has one, I don't know."

Nicole catches that, and raises an eyebrow. "Wynonna's not exactly the Virgin Mary."

Waverly just shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know much more than you do. But I’ve learned to stop writing things off as impossible.”

Nicole has to give her that. All of this is not anything she'd expected to ever deal with. Would an immaculate conception really be all that strange?

"Besides," Waverly says, "We still don't know if I’m, you know, blood related."

Nicole wishes she could find solace in that. She doesn't know the truth, if Waverly is an Earp or not, no more than Waverly does. But she has a hunch, and her hunches are half the reason she graduated top of her class in the academy.

But even if she's right, even if they don't share blood.... she tries to imagine it, let's the idea sit in her head. Her with Wynonna, Wynona's head between her legs, her fingers, their sounds.... and it doesn't really matter what's in their blood. It doesn't make it any easier.

Waverly sure says it like it's important, though. She pauses to let Nicole comment, and seems disappointed when she doesn't.

"So...you need a blood test, right?"

"Well, that would be a thing to do, except..."

"Except?"

"It's kind of a sticky situation. Can't exactly have our local clinic performing this kind of paternity test."

"Oh," Nicole rubs at her arm, "Yeah, that would be..." Nicole trails off. Her eyes flick off in thought and Waverly doesn't miss it.

"What is it?" she asks.

"I think.... I know someone who can help."

///

Shae's phone lights up with her wife's name. It's the first time in months and she knows its not a casual call. She's with a patient, it's unprofessional, and she knows she might get chewed out for it later.

She has to take it.

Shae steps out into the hallway and looks at the screen again. She's taken the phone of Nicole off, so it's just her lock screen. Her name is bare and logical and utterly un-emojid.

"Nicole?" she answers.

“Hey, Shae,” Nicole’s hand is wrapped tight around her phone and holding it close to her cheek. It’s hotter than her body, probably the hottest thing a mile in any direction. “I need your help.”

///

"We really should do this in a lab" Shae says for the fifth time that hour, "Even if I sterilize it, and I have, there's just... so much more bacteria here. And I'll have to go stop by the chemist anyway, to drop the sharps off, it'll be a lot easier if we just-"

Shae turns around with the prepped needle in her hand and looks at the expression of the two women in front of her. Her wife, and her wife's new lover.

"Never mind. Arm out."

Waverly complies wordlessly. She extends her left arm because Shae's on her left side, and Shae directs her to lay out across the rolled-out tea towel she'd set up for support. It's all so...inelegant.

"Make a first for me." Shae says.

Waverly does, and the tendons in her arms jump. Shae holds the needle close enough that Waverly can see just how big it is. She shifts, and Nicole gives her a squeeze on her other arm.

"You'll be fine."

Shae taps at the crook of her arm to find the vein. She wraps fabric around it and pulls it tight with a clip.

"Small pinch." Shae says, "three, two-" Shae slips it in before she reaches one, "Release the fist."

Waverly has to look away as her blood starts to flow. It rises against gravity. Shae holds the needle still. she's done these a hundred times before. A thousand.

It's silence throughout the house. Shae's holding Waverly's arm still and Waverly's holding onto Nicole's shoulder. Shae's eyes drift to their point of contact. Her wife. Not really her wife. Nicole hadn't worn her ring long enough to get a tan line.

"Almost done." Shae withdraws the needle and covers it quickly with a piece of cotton. "Hold it here." She instructs Waverly to keep it in place while she finds a plaster. If this was her office, she wouldn't have to dig around like this, it'd be so much easier if she could just do this all the right way.

But Nicole had insisted on this. Vehemently. She knows Nicole well enough to know that means there’s a good reason. Shae hopes it isn’t anything illegal, at least, but she doesn’t really see how a paternity test could be used to subvert the rule of law in any major way. She hopes not. No need for this situation to get any more complicated.

"Alright," Shae takes the vials in her hand and lays them out.  They're warm in her hand. "That's you done. I just need to see the... the other mother," Shae says. Waverly pulls her arm back and out of Shae's reach. Nicole lets go of Waverly's arm too. Shae watches them. She's got more degrees than is strictly reasonable for her age and even she can't figure out what's going on there. Nicole had been purposely vague on the phone, but between a still married woman and her girlfriend and her girlfriend's baby momma... Shae supposes she sees why Nicole had insisted on not doing this through conventional means.

"Before I go, do you need anything else?" Shae checks over the blood test form while she waits for the answers she expects to hear.

"Anything...else?" Waverly looks at Nicole like, 'do you know what she's talking about?'. Shae looks up from the form. She clears her throat.

"I mean, your hormones. I can write you a script while I'm here.”

"My...hormones?"

"Yes..." Shae's voice wavers more and more by the second, "Your... the estrogen?"

Waverly sits up. Shae finally finds the plaster, and moves Waverly's hand away so she can put it over the puncture mark.

"My... what? A script?"

Waverly's eyebrows are knitted together in the middle and Shae realises she has no idea what she's talking about. Nicole seems only a little more in the know.

"Oh, sorry," Shae says, "I must've been confused. Miscommunication on the phone. So you're the pregnant one?" she asks Waverly.

Waverly shakes her head, "No, I'm... _that_ would be a surprise." Waverly's tone is too sharp and the words are too quick and the situation is too serious and too odd for it to be funny at all.

"Sorry, I'm confused," it's Shae's turn to sit back, "I thought you were transgender?"

“What?” Waverly visibly winces. She’ll only be embarrassed later that she reacted to it like an accusation, like it was something to be ashamed of, “No, I’m…” Waverly gestures down her body, “I’m not trans.”

“You’re not?”

Waverly shakes her head. “Yeah, I think I’d know.”

Shae hates this. Feeling stupid. She always has. It’s half the reason she became a doctor, so she’d always be the smartest one in the room.

“Right, of course, I just… when Nicole told me I’d be doing a paternity test for two women…”

Waverly's mouth makes an 'O' as the pieces sink in. She gives Nicole a withering look after her realization settles: apparently Nicole really hadn't done a lot of explaining. Waverly supposes she can't blame her.

"No, I'm not trans." Waverly says again.

Shae looks down at her papers.

"You're.... Waverly, right?" She checks the dates and the details, and starts wondering how she could have mixed it up.

"Yep." Waverly says. She takes her arm off of the towel and rests both her hands in her laps. The dull ache that Shae warned her might happen is already starting.

"Right," Shae says, "So then..." she reads from the paper "... Wynonna... is trans?"

Waverly shakes her head.

"I don't understand." Shae says with finality. all her medical training is failing her and as much as she hates it, she admits defeat.

Nicole moves closer to her and for a second it's like their back in Vegas. That mannerism, her impeccable ability to detect and understand suffering... that hasn't changed. For the first time since she sat down, Shae actually feels like she's looking at Nicole.

“I mean, am I missing something? That’s not possible.”

Waverly makes a sound. "You obviously aren't from Purgatory."

Shae skips over that and tries to fall back on analytics, but nothing is adding up.

"What's going on here, Nicole?" Shae asks, because it's clear that Waverly isn't going to be much help in that situation.

"Honestly... we were sort of hoping you could tell us..." Nicole drops her eyes. Even sitting down, she's taller. God, she still smells the same. Shae leans forward. That's not the answer she wanted to hear.

But she is nothing if not a doctor.

"We just need you to run the test. If it's not... a match, then this doesn't even matter."

Shae sighs. She detaches the needle from the last vial and drops it in the old ice cream container she'd been forced to use for the sharps.

"Alright, then. Time to see the other one."

Waverly grabs her purse off the table next to her and tucks it under her arm. Nicole gives her a half smile as she stands up.

 The second before Waverly disappears up the stairs, she sees Nicole reach for her phone and start typing something out. They've already planned how this was going to go. It was one of Nicole's terms. The whole thing was so micro managed Waverly almost expected Nicole to make them all run drills.

She'd go first while Wynonna waited outside. then Nicole would text Wynonna, and Waverly would head upstairs, and Wynonna would be in and out without the two of them other seeing each other. That was the plan, and it would have worked, if Wynonna hadn't been Wynonna.

Wynonna was waiting right outside the door, leaning against the door instead of in her car like she was supposed to. When her phone dinged, she didn't even check it was from Nicole, didn't even open the message before she let herself in. Wynonna entered just as Waverly was at the bottom of the stairs, and the motion would have caught Waverly's attention even if she hadn't been hoping for it.

There's a second when they just look at each other. Wynonna stills, and from that angle, in that jacket, Waverly almost forgets what's growing inside her that's got them all gathered together under the same roof. Her baby. _Their_ baby. Waverly doesn't have the results yet but she _knows_ , because with her life and Wynonna's life how could it be anything _but_ the worst-case scenario?

It's a cliche, but Wynonna really is glowing. Her skin is still tight and a bit blue from the cold and wind outside, but just under it is life, so _much_ of it.

Wynonna opens her mouth, and Waverly starts taking the steps two at a time. She leaves Wynonna in the hallway, enroute to a stranger and a woman who hates her.

Wynonna checks for Peacemaker, and tries to remember when she last loaded it.

She seems to be doing that a lot, these days.

///

“Okay, _Wynonna_ …” Shae scans the details at the top of the form, “Wynonna….?”

“Earp. Wynonna Earp.”

“Earp?” Shae reaches for the folder where she put Waverly’s form. Nicole stops her.

“Yes,” Nicole says. Shae hears her grind her teeth, and has to remind herself that Nicole’s bad habits aren’t her business anymore. “Earp.”

Wynonna and Nicole are sitting as far as possible from each other while still being in the same room. Shae doesn’t like that they both have guns.

Shae reaches for a fresh, sealed needle. Her doctors bag still smells of the cool sterility of her usual office. Smells of clean. She tries to go about it as professionally as she can, not thinking about the names and what they mean, and fails entirely. As if it hadn’t been complicated enough on the face of it.

“Okay, Wynonna. Arm out, make a fist.”

Her job is gory details, but _honestly._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for your comments guys, keeps me young and spry!
> 
> I've had a thought. If I were to start taking commissions around this sort of thing, would anyone bite? I do commissions on my main ao3/tumblr, but because I specifically have this separate to avoid hate on my main, I'd have to set stuff up to do it and I don't want to do that if there's no audience. Price would be about 1c/word, starting from $1 for 100 words. I haven't even decided if it's something I'd do but... let me know if any of you think that's something you might be sort of interested in.
> 
> And I know this says one more chapter left. That's a goddamn lie lmao even I don't know how long this will end up being.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some answers, more issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I made a [ tumblr ](earpcin.tumblr.com) . Come talk to me!   
> Again, comments mean the world.  
> I have a few other things in the works too. When this gets to 150 comments & kudos, I'll post another one shot.

"Okay, Shae, drive safe. Sometimes you can't see the ice. Takes the curves real slow."

Nicole lingers in the doorway after Shae leaves, redistributing the informaiton she'd almost learned the very hard way. She doesn't feel like a native Purgatorian yet, but compared to Shae, she's downright local.

"Thanks, Nic," Shae's got the vials of everything stashed away in her bag. She's a little grateful for the cold; at least it means she's in less of a rush to get everything refrigerated.

Shae's car is a nice model. Doctor salary type model. Nicole remembers going with her to buy it, the argument there, the argument on the way back. Shae gets behind the wheel and it purrs as it starts. Nicole closes the door, locking the cold out.

Wynonna left five minutes ago, very eager not to be alone with Nicole.

"So, we'll know in a week?" Waverly's voice comes from behind her.

"That's what she said."

Waverly nods. She knew that. She just wanted to break the silence.

" _So_... that's your wife?"

"Yep," Nicole says. She doesn't feel the need to explain more. Waverly knows it's more a technicality than anything, already. anything more is just fishing, and Nicole won't bite. she doesn't even feel bad.

"She's... really pretty," Waverly pushes herself lightly off of the counter and crosses to Nicole's side of the room. She would lay her chin on Nicole's shoulder, but she's not tall enough, or Nicole is too tall.

"She is." Nicole doesn't soften herself as Waverly approached. Waverly leans into her side but Nicole stays.

"Is that why you married her?"

Nicole sighs. She turns, and it forces Waverly to stop leaning on her. "Part of it. It was Vegas, you know."

Waverly nods thoughtfully, but she doesn't know. She's never been to Vegas. She's never left Purgatory, so all she has are stories.

"And it was partly a 'fuck you', too.”

Waverly nods again. _That,_ she can understand.

"I mean, it was legal, and she has issues with her parents and I had issues with mine, and there we were, together, and it just..." Nicole puts her hands out to mime an explosion and Waverly grabbed them mid motion.

"Did it end badly?"

Nicole looks at where their hands are joined.

"As well as a divorce can go, I guess. Shae's not... bitter," Nicole says, "Well, but I guess tou could figure that out. Given what she just did."

Waverly nods, and runs a thumb over Nicole's knuckles. Nicole's still standing taller than is necesaary, especially when height already isn't a problem for her. She hasn't relaxed since Wynonna was here, chest still puffed, traces of adrenaline and anger still lingering. Waverly leans in until her head just touches Nicole's chest.

"And she's not gonna... tell anyone, right? I mean, about..."

"The incest."

Nicole says it just as Waverly’s exhaling, and her breathe turns shaky in her mouth. She tenses against Nicole's body, then pulls away.

"Just calling a spade a spade." Nicole says. Waverly retreats back to the counter and leans against it.

"It must feel good," she says, "Having the high ground."

Nicole raises an eyebrow. " _Excuse_ me?"

"I just mean. You can say what you want. And I can't say anything back. Cause, well, you're not wrong. Doesn't mean you have to..."

"Have to what?"

Waverly shakes her head. She doesn't want this fight. She's already so tired, she's so used to Nicole's comments, she might as well bare it.

"Nothing. Nevermind. So, will she? Tell anyone?"

"No," Nicole answers immediately, "Shae's not that type of person. Or that type of doctor. There's a confidentiality thing, you know."

"Yeah I know," Waverly reaches up to her hair to play with one loose lock, "But this wasn't exactly an official visit."

Nicole sighs, and lets herself soften. She doesn't want to get soft: Waverly is right, there's a certain pleasure in being stoic on the high ground, on being right and revelling it. But this is Waverly. This is... Waverly, before anything else, before crimes or history or complications.

"She won't tell anyone. Don't worry. You're okay."

Nicole opens her arms and pulls Waverly in. Waverly starts to shake almost the very second Nicole gets her arms around her. Nicole's a whole head clear of Waverly, and rests her chin on Waverly's head while she shakes and sobs.

Nicole isn't sure what to do with her hands. She puts them on Waverly's back and doesn't move them.

"It's... okay," Nicole says, and the words sound hollow, even to herself, but hopes Waverly gets something from this.

Nicole's not sure how she got her, consoling her girlfriend about fucking her sister, assuring her she was fine.

The things you do for love.

Nicole holds her for so long that it gets uncomfortable, physically. She thinks that surely, surely, Waverly must be cried out by now. Her shirt's so wet that she's sure she won't have to wash it for another week. Eventually, the shakes become sniffles, and Waverly starts to hold her own weight again.

"Is this what 'trying' look like?" Waverly asks.

"I hope not forever," Nicole says, "That'd be..."

Nicole realises that she's never seen Waverly cry this much. Not even close. Even she can't make ugly crying look good. Nicole searched for tissues but can't find any, so hand Waverly a roll of kitchen towels instead.

She looks down at herself and frowns. She'll have to change her shirt.

Waverly excuses herself to the bathroom to wash her face. While she's gone, Nicole pulls out her phone, and sees the message she missed from Shae.

'It was good seeing you again, even under these circumstances'

Nicole smiles down at her phone but it breaks when she hears the water stop running. Moments later, there's the door, and then Waverly's back in the room.

"What's that?" Waverly gestured to her phone.

Nicole types out a response.

_'You too xo'_

She stuffs it back in her pocket like it's too hot in her hand.

///

Wynonna's alone in a doctor's office, the lights too bright and her belly too big too fast. The sheer shock of waking up and having a part of her body be so different, so divergent from the body map she was used to... it was awful. She still isn't sure she'd adjusted.

Pregnancy is just uncomfortable, no matter how well you eat or how much prenatal yoga you do, and Wynonna isn't doing any of those things. She's not drinking though, either, for the first time in a long time, for the first time since she started. The clear headedness is nice, but... not worth it, ultimately.

The door opens and Wynonna has to fight the reflex to cover herself. Her belly is exposed with her shirt pushed up and it all feels to unnatural, she doesn't want to be seen like this, even though it's the same doctor who left her there like that.

“Alright, sorry about that,” the doctor sets down a clipboard she’d forgotten in the other room and went to fetch, “Are you ready?”

Wynonna nods. She doesn’t know if she can speak.

The doctor hovers over her, “This’ll be a bit cold.”

She squeezes out the gel and spreads it across Wynonna’s abdomen. She’s right. It is cold. Wynonna shifts and wiggles until the doctor tells her to stand still.  Wynonna watches the image appear on the screen, black and pale blue. It looks… exactly like every ultrasound she’s ever seen on tv.

“Would you like to know the sex?”

Wynonna shakes her head on impulse. Stops. Considers. She’s sure Waverly would want to know. She’d want to decorate, buy clothes, brain storm names…

“Oh no, you’re crying, are you… are you alright?” The doctor is at her sides in seconds and offering her a tissue. Wynonna takes it with a soft ‘thank you’ that even she can’t really hear.

Wynonna skips over the question of the baby's sex entirely and starts to get dressed. All she can think about is Waverly. Waverly whose baby she might be carrying, Waverly who she can't see anymore, Waverly who's living with her girlfriend while Wynonna's alone at the appointment.

The doctor puts a hand on Wynonna's shoulder. she would shrug it off, but something about the pregnancy has made her slightly more averse to being rude. Slightly.

Wynonna leaves the room, away from the doctor's instructions to make another appointment.

///

She knows she’s not supposed to drink. She can hear the doctor’s voice in her head. Hear Waverly’s voice. Fuck, even Nicole doesn’t care about _her_ wellbeing, but she’d sure as hell take Wynonna to task about the baby’s health.

Whatever.  Waverly got the school and the friends and the graduation cap and the girlfriend and the forgiveness. Wynonna gets the whiskey and the gun.

///

Waverly shaves _everywhere_. It's a goddamn hassle and she cuts herself three times, but only at the knees, not anywhere important. If Nicole's finally gonna have sex with her again then she's going to make sure it's perfect, make sure she's perfect, make sure there's no reason Nicole won't come back and back and back.

Waverly spends longer on her makeup and hair than is at all reasonable.

When she gets out of the bathroom it's already past ten and she worries that Nicole might be able to legitimately use the excuse that she's too tired. She walks just a bit faster, and pauses the make sure Nicole is still in the living room where Waverly has last seen her. She is.

Waverly looks down to check her outfit again. The same cheerleading get up she'd worn in high school. Nicole seemed to like it well enough earlier, and Waverly was counting on it working again.

She'd worn it for Wynonna, too. Not so much as a performance, just that Wynonna picked her up after cheer practice and she didn't take it off before they had sex. Waverly didn't miss that Wynonna felt a bit rougher, a bit faster, a bit more excited. Waverly had made a note of it, started wearing it more often.

But Nicole doesn’t need to know that.

Waverly steps into the room. She spots the whiskey Nicole has set out on the table, and wishes she'd had some of her own before trying this.

Nicole doesn't seem to notice her straight away. Waverly leans against the doorway in the most enticing pose she can muster. She clears her throat.

Nicole looks up from her phone, and smiles for a fraction of a second before she remembers that she's not supposed to. Then she sees what Waverly's wearing, and smiles again.

"Oh? What's this?" Nicole puts her phone on the coffee table. She's started leaving it face down.

"Just..." Waverly shifts her weight with a wiggle of her hips, "...found this old thing." Waverly steps deeper into the room and Nicole sits back on the couch, but not like she's trying to get away. So far, so good.

"I don't have my Spotify linked to your speakers," Waverly says, "So we'll have to skip the strip tease. Music is half the magic."

Waverly walks right up to Nicole and transitions onto the couch, hovering over Nicole with her knees on either side of her thighs. She can’t stop watching Nicole’s hands, half expecting her to stop her at any given moment.

She doesn’t. Waverly hadn’t really expected to get this far.

She leans in just as Nicole leans up, and it’s the first open mouth kiss she’s had in a week. It’s _good_. Waverly falls forward and into Nicole’s chest, and Nicole wraps an arm around her back.

“Bedroom?” Waverly asks, out of breath. Nicole shakes her head.

Waverly immediately pulls back. The disappointment comes off of her in waves, as hard as she tries to suppress it. She bites her bottom lip and makes to leave. Her heads down and her cheeks are burning.

Nicole grabs her wrist.

“Wait,” there’s something dangerous in her voice that Waverly doesn’t think she’s ever heard directly before. Overheard, maybe, when she’s dealing with criminals or on the phone with someone she hates. Never directed at her, “On the couch.”

Waverly nods numbly, and collapses on the couch next to Nicole. She goes for the hemline of her shirt, to lift it up and off. Nicole stops her.

"No," she says, "Leave it all-" Nicole pauses for a second, glances down at Waverly's skirt, "Are you wearing underwear?"

Waverly shakes her head no.

"Leave it all on, then."

Nicole turns around and kisses Waverly so that Waverly's below her, and Nicole's pushing her deeper into the couch. Waverly moans, too loudly for just a kiss. Embarrassing. But she's been so touched starved that anything, anything... she just wants someone to touch her.

Nicole, she reminds herself. she wants Nicole to touch her.

Nicole’s hand is on her thigh and inching up higher, higher. Normally the foreplay is longer but Waverly doesn't mind. Nicole uses her other hand to pull Waverly's thighs wider apart, and the skirt rides up to accommodate.

Nicole hands down feel like her own, and Waverly has an image of Champ doing the same thing. She pushes up and find's Waverly's centre.

"You waxed?" Nicole says.

"Just shaved," Waverly says. She doesn't even finish before Nicole has one finger inside of her, and she keeps pushing deeper, deeper. Waverly tries to help by getting her hips at the night angle, but something about that seems to ignore Nicole because she grabs Waverly's thigh with her free hand and positions her back.

"I want you on your belly." Nicole says, and pulls her finger out. Waverly quickly complies, though this isn't anything they've done before. She lays herself out on the couch while Nicole gets up off the couch.

"Wait there. Just like that."

Nicole turns and heads in the direction of the bedroom and leaves Waverly there, exposed against the cold. This isn't something they do, something they're into, but Waverly still really doesn't like the idea of disobeying.

It’s enough to keep her from going after Nicole, even as the minutes drag on and she stops being quite so wet and she starts to imagine the front door opening, someone coming in. _Wynonna_ coming in.

Waverly's just starting to think that Nicole changed her mind, or that the whole thing was just a cruel joke and she's not coming back, when she senses Nicole's shadow in the door way. She moves in Waverly's peripheral vision, Waverly who can't lift her head to look without it being too uncomfortable. Even without looking directly, Waverly can tell Nicole is walking different. More swagger. Nicole gets on the couch and lays herself over Waverly's back and Waverly knows why.

The strap on had scared her at first, so they hadn't used it a lot. Nicole seemed to be keen on the idea, though, so Waverly had agreed. she was worried it would just be how it'd been with Champ, and that's not something she wanted.

Nicole's hand snakes its way back up again to check if Waverly's still wet enough. She frowns when she feels she isn't. Nicole works one finger in again, then two, deeper. Waverly wills herself to get wetter, faster.

“Are you ready, babe?”

She isn’t not entirely, but she nods, and Nicole pulls her short skirt the rest of the way up her ass. She pulls her hips up and grabs the shaft with one hand, lines up, and slips in. Waverly’s hands grab at the edge of a cushion while Nicole starts thrusting.

It takes a little while to feel good, but it does, and Waverly start working her hips back in rhythm. Nicole grabs her around her waist and starts pulling her back into the thrusts. Waverly looks back, over her shoulder. Nicole sounds focused, and she always looks good when she’s focused.

“No, don’t look at me,” Nicole says. Waverly immediately looks away, like closing a laptop with porn on it, “Look straight ahead at the wall.”

A second later, Nicole’s hand is in her hair and pulling her head up to force her in that direction. Nicole thrust into her, again, harder, and it pulls on her hair painfully.

It’s painful. She knows Nicole would stop if she asked her too, but she won’t ask. She won’t ask.

Nicole grabs at Waverly’s hip and if she had longer nails she’s cut through the skin. She’s never done it like this, but Waverly doesn’t stop her so she keeps going harder, deeper.

Eventually it feels like a dare, a challenge against herself. How much can I do before she stops me, how far can I push it, what’s her _breaking point._

But Waverly just doesn’t stop her.

Nicole gets tired before she gets off, and tells Waverly to ride her. She does, with reckless abandon, and they both cum with nails in each other’s backs.

///

Wynonna’s _really_ not supposed to drive in her condition. There’s not much that can stop her, though. She can see smoke coming from Nicole’s chimney. There’s a letter from the blood lab burning a hole in her pocket.

///

After, she's sore between her legs. That she expected. Less expected is the ache in her fingers from curling them so tight, or how her arms feel like they're too light or too heavy every time she tries to reach for something.

Nicole redressed in a rush, but at least she really did have an excuse. Small town police department means a real understaffing problem, means Nicole has to deal with almost everything hands on. It's odd that a domestic happens at twelve noon, but Nicole figures that rampant assholery doesn't sleep.

"Where my other boot?" Nicole scans the floor and starting picks up Waverly's clothing and tossing it, even though she knows they wouldn't be able to disguise the shape of her shoe. She's walking around with only one on, with a thud tap thud tap thud tap that throws off her gait.

"Behind the couch, I think," Waverly crosses her legs as Nicole comes closer.

Nicole spots it and just as she's bending down, the front door open. Wynonna doesn't even knock because she knows she won't be let in.

Waverly can tell she's drunk immediately. It takes Nicole a little longer, between reaching for her gun and trying to figure out if it's a burglar or one of the widows or, even worse, Wynonna. Her gun's not on her hip, still in her belt laid across the table, and Waverly can't even blame her for going for it.

That's not because it's Wynonna. When someone literally bursts into your house, that's just practical.

" _Wynonna_?" Nicole says, but they all already know it's here, "What the fuck are you... are you drunk?"

Wynonna's next few steps into the house confirm Nicole's suspicions, wordlessly.

"Jesus, you know you can't drink, I mean I knew you were fucking stupid and irresponsible but-"

Wynonna steadies herself against the door way. She raises her arm, shaking, and points at Waverly. It’s only when Wynonna looks at her that Waverly notices how naked she still is, and pulls the cover off of the back of the couch to wrap it around herself.

“Did you just finish fucking her?” Wynonna asks, as if it wasn’t entirely obvious.

“Wynonna, you need to go home,” Nicole is using her cop voice, the one she uses interchangeably on every other drunkard in Purgatory. It could be a lot worse.

“Does she call you daddy too?”

A wave of scare-shame runs down Waverly’s spine and she twists her fingers into the sheet. She swallows and tries to find where her clothes have gone, sucked somewhere in between the couch cushions.

“What?”

“Yeah, Haught,” Wynonna bangs once on the frame but only accomplishes hurting her own hand, “the way you swagger around. The gun. The _height_.”

Two sets of eyes flick over to Waverly. “Yeah,” Wynonna says, a million miles away, like she’s not talking to Nicole, “Yeah, I bet she does.”

Nicole still only has one boot on. The other’s dropped beside the coffee table, below her gun belt.

“She called me daddy too, you know. Her idea, actually, so don’t twist like it’s some perversion I pushed onto her,” Wynonna’s breathe is hot and unpleasant and she feels it at the back of her teeth when she speaks, “I’d bend her over something and push inside and she’d moan, she’d beg, daddy, _daddy, yes.”_ Wynonna’s voice turns obscene and with the alcohol colouring it, it’s on point, “She loved it. Got her off like fucking noth-”

Nicole slaps her. Wynonna stumbles three steps back and hits the wall. Photos of people she doesn’t recognize jitter with the impact. Nicole doesn’t go for another slap and Wynonna doesn’t try to fight back, but she doesn’t stop, either.

"I had her first," it comes out all slurred together, but Nicole's listening close enough that she doesn't miss a single word, "No matter what you do, I'll always be first. I'll always be... I was before Champ, too, the very first. You can't take that from me. You can take her but you can't take the past, it happened, I was first, I was her first, I was-"

Wynonna falls back against the wall so hard that Nicole worries she's taken out some of the plaster. She slumps down and slides down it, her shirt getting caught and riding up as she collapses. Her belly stops her from pulling her knees in but she tucks herself in as closely as she can, keeping her limbs close around her torso's orbit.

"I was... I was..." Wynonna's eyes find Waverly's. Between them are all the conversations they never had, everything Wynonna had put off and off and thought it didn't even matter because they could do it tomorrow. It was so close.

Wynonna reaches in her jacket pockets and pulls out what she came here for. She throws the paper forward and it catches itself on the air, turns over, spins. It’s entirely, offensively, too whimsical.

“The results,” Wynonna says.

Nicole bends to pick up the paper and unfolds it. It’s lines and patterns abbreviations she can’t make sense of at first.

“It’s Waverly’s,” Wynonna says, “The baby’s Waverly’s.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know the drill. This is fucking angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW so I got a bit tired of this story for a bit. Anyway. Check me our on tumblr at [ earpcin ](https://earpcin.tumblr.com) and enjoy !

Nicole does most of the work of hauling Wynonna's drunk ass up the stairs and to their bed. Waverly tries to help, but Nicole is so hyper attuned with exactly where and how Waverly places her hands-on Wynonna's body that she loses focus and almost drops her. Waverly would have figured the ankle was neutral territory, but apparently not.

Nicole takes over with an annoyed 'just let me' and Waverly stands back with her arms crossed over her chest. Her clothes are rumpled and creased, and she tries to smooth one out on her sleeve, like fixing that one crease will do anything to make her look less dishevelled.

Waverly's convinced that Nicole is rougher than necessary getting Wynonna up the stairs, that some of those bumps weren't entirely avoidable, or were harder than they should have been. When Wynonna wakes up, she won't just be disoriented and hung over, but she'll be covered in bruises too.

A bitter part of her, something that sounds a lot like Mikshen's voice, says that it wouldn't be a first for her.

Waverly hears dragging noises and then a grunt and then a metallic creak of springs. Wynonna. Asleep in her bed. Her bed that she shared with Nicole.

_Jesus._

Nicole comes down the stairs so loudly that it scares Calamity Jane into bolting for the kitchen. She found her other boot and was making full use of it, leaving heavy forced footsteps on every step.

Waverly doesn't need to hear her stomping to know how angry she is.

"So it's yours?" Nicole says before her feet are even stable. It an accusation.

"Nicole, you knew this might happen, you knew it was a possibility, you can't act shocked-"

"I'm not shocked," Nicole says, and Waverly believes her. "I'm not shocked, no," Nicole takes two steps closer to her. She's already so much taller than Waverly, but now Waverly is barefoot and she's in platform boots, "No, I'm disgusted. But not surprised."

Waverly takes a step back. It's the first time Nicole's height has ever put her off.

"What about the other thing?"

"The other...?"

"Other blood test. Just how inbred is it gonna be? Should be only worry about webbed feet or should we be getting ready for an Eldritch horror?"

Waverly doesn’t even have time for her jaw to drop.

“That’s my fucking baby you’re talking about, you _bitch_ ,” the words come out winded and more sad than angry. Immediately, Nicole looks guilty.

 _Let her,_ Waverly thinks, _it looks good on her._

“We are, by the way,” Waverly says, “Half-sisters. Same mother. Does that make you feel better?”

Nicole shifts, and doesn’t say anything. Waverly sighs.

"I know you hate Wynonna, Nicole, but you can't... you can't keep me from the baby. It's my child too, I have to... be involved."

"And you will be! After it's born, you'll see it, when the baby and Wynonna aren't a package deal."

"They always will be! What do you think’s gonna happen, Wynonna's just gonna give me the baby? Never see it? What the hell are we gonna do, go to court for a custody agreement?"

Nicole opens her mouth to say something but bites it closed again, and chews on air as she thinks.

"That's if Wynonna even keeps it," Waverly thinks out loud, "We never talked about that, if she wanted to keep it, or give it away, what she wanted. Though I guess, now, I have input in that too, I don't... I don't know.... I don't know."

Nicole rubs at her side of her face. "Yeah, neither do I."

"I have to talk to Wynonna. There are things we _need_ to talk about, we need those answers.”

Nicole bristles. She isn’t happy by a long shot, but she’s listening.

“However you feel about Wynonna, it’s not fair… to put that on the baby. This baby… that has to be the priority, they didn’t ask for any of this and we have to think about-“

“Yeah, this baby,” Waverly can see the anger on Nicole’s face. It’s such an ugly expression that it even makes Nicole look unattractive, something Waverly would have regarded as impossible a few months ago. Waverly sees that expression and knows something ugly is coming, and she’s angry before she even hears it, “…that’s fucking… born of rape and incest and-“

“Jesus Nicole, so fucking _what!_ ” Waverly yells. Calamity Jane jumps from her sleep and runs from the room with the highest level of drama possible. “Do you have a goddamn point? Or do you just want to say that because you know it upsets me? Just because you can? Let it _go_.”

Nicole looks guilty until the second before Waverly finishes, and Waverly feels stupid for giving Nicole something she can volley back.

“Let it _go_?” Nicole scoffs.

“-not what I meant!” Waverly says. She hates this. Every argument they have, and they’ve been having a lot, they shift from offensive to defensive so fast that half the time Waverly forgets what her own point was. “Hate Wynonna. Hate me. But you can’t… hate this baby. It hasn’t done anything.”

 _I can_ , Nicole thinks. The thought is entirely unbidden and so sudden and sure it almost scares her. Waverly has a point, this baby… didn’t have a say in how it was made, is entirely innocent, but Nicole thinks about it – what its face might look like, pictures Waverly’s eyes and Wynonna’s nose – and she feels _sick_.

It’s _unfair_.

“This is just the situation, Nicole. I know you hate it. I wasn’t exactly prepared for it, either. I was _unconscious_ during the conception,” something in Waverly’s face twitches, and something much deeper stirs too. Just enough for Waverly to know to avoid it. She moves on quickly, “…but if Wynonna does want to keep it – or even if she doesn’t - we should be prepared.”

“Prepared?”

“Prepared! You know, birthing plans and… and doctor’s visits and … I don’t know, buying things? A cot?” Waverly tries to think back through the knowledge about pregnancy she’s absorbed from the pop culture zeitgeist. It’s not great, “I don’t know. I’ve never had a baby.”

“Yeah,” Nicole says, “I think this is pretty well uncharted territory for all of us.”

“And Wynonna’s alone,” Waverly says, ‘Just… imagine she wasn’t Wynonna, okay. She’s alone and she’s _pregnant_ living in a house that’s ground zero for every personal tragedy in her life. And now her…” Waverly gestures down her body, “…baby daddy? Baby momma? I don’t know, whatever – can’t see her, and she can’t even talk to Doc or Dolls, because they don’t _know_.”

Nicole knows all that. She knows that Wynonna is suffering, with a baby she didn’t want or expect and an isolation she can’t drink her way through. But then she pictures her on top of Waverly when she was thirteen, and it’s really hard to care.

“I know you don’t want it to be just me and her. That’s fine. You can be there the whole time. You can be right between us. But I have to see her, Nicole, or she might… do something.”

By the way Waverly drops her eyes, she knows she means something specific. Nicole had never asked much about Wynonna’s past, and her record was sealed even to police officers, but she knew it had been bad. She didn’t know if Wynonna had ever actually tried to kill herself.

She couldn’t write that off.

“ _Okay_ ,” Nicole relented, “but I’m there the whole time. And it’s in public.”

Waverly eagerly nodded.

“Yes, yes, of course. I know what we’re doing.”

Nicole’s expression made her elaborate.

“We’re going shopping.”

///

“That’s ages three and up, check the label, Wynonna.” Waverly speaks over her shoulder while rifling through patterned onesies.

“Yeah, but that’s just marketing,” Wynonna says, “Anyway, we can just keep it until they’re older.”

Waverly abandons the onesies when she feels Wynonna hovering behind her, and inspects the package she’s holding out.

“Look at all those little parts. Do you want our baby to choke?” Waverly says it like a joke but only realises once it’s out that it wasn’t the right thing to say.

Waverly winces and turns to Nicole just in time to catch her tighten her mouth in a straight line, and very pointedly look over Wynonna’s head. Wynonna shrinks away, and puts the toy back on the rack wordlessly.

“What’s next?” Wynonna prompts Waverly to pull out the list she’s insisted on writing down with pen and paper instead of just making a note on her phone. Waverly pulled it from her pocket.

“We need pacifiers,” Waverly reads out, folds the note and stuffs it back in her pocket. She’s always preferred to write things down, ever since she’d had to develop some system to cope with her crushing workload in high school. Waverly had told Wynonna years ago – while Wynonna was pestering her to leave her homework and do something _fun_ \-  that it was because crossing things out in real life was more satisfying than tapping a phone screen. Wynonna had called her a dork for it, and started kissing her neck.

“Two aisles over,” Nicole says. She’s the tallest out of them and can read the hanging signs the easiest. Waverly adjusts the shopping basket on her arm, and they walk.

Nicole’s never far away. She aligns herself with Waverly entirely, grabbing her hand in a way she’s explicitly told Waverly she doesn’t like to do in public. Anything to make it abundantly clear that Wynonna is third wheeling.

They get a few looks. The ice between them is obvious; Nicole wonders what the shop owner must have thought of their dynamic when they’d come in from the cold, faces red and posture tense like the three of them had just gotten out of a screaming match. Whatever he might’ve guessed, Nicole thinks, it couldn’t be as bad as the truth.

The tension is entirely Nicole’s fault: even despite all the circumstances, she can tell that the sisters are, on some level, excited. She’s not sure if it’s just the psychology of bright colours and capitalism, but she watches how their voices change and they move just a bit faster when they spot something interesting.

This time, it’s a pacifier with a strategically placed moustache on it. Wynonna finds it absolutely hilarious, and picks it up to show Waverly with a smile. She catches Nicole’s eyes and her enthusiasm dissipates in a second, like she remembers that this is supposed to be a necessary chore, it’s not supposed to be _fun_.

Waverly sees the interaction and tries to console Wynonna with a half-smile when she sees the pacifier. She takes it from Wynonna softly and drops it in the basket, overthinking how long their fingers touch for.

“Can you just grab like, a five pack?” Nicole turns away from the novelty pacifiers with the animal mouths and toward the simple, pastel colour ones, “How many of these does a baby even need? Like, are they disposable, or…” Without getting an answer, Nicole reaches for a pack and drops it into Waverly’s basket.

Wynonna wants to say something snarky. She doesn't like it on a visceral level, Nicole being this involved. She could deal with the hovering and the supervising her and Waverly, but Nicole making active choices is somehow worse. But that might just be the hormones making her snappy, too.

Wynonna forces her most civil smile, and speaks directly to Nicole without having to go through Waverly for translation, “Grab another pack, would you, please?” Her tone doesn’t exactly fit in her mouth, and the please is entirely out of character. Nicole can’t help but be a little bit pleased that she’s knocked Wynonna out of her attitude orbit.

She grabs another pack, yellow since they don’t know the sex, and drops it in the basket too.

Nicole feels weird about it too. Participating. They haven’t talked about nearly half of what they need to talk about, and Nicole doesn’t know what this baby is to _her_. What it could be.

“Thank you,” Wynonna doesn’t say it like she means it, and makes a big movement of turning back to look at bottles and toys she really isn’t interested in.

Nicole’s phone beeps in her pocket and she pulls it out, expecting it to be work. She's taken the day off but as a police officer in Purgatory, she was never off call entirely.

It's not work. She reads the name 'Shae' and swipes to open it. She tries three times to unlock it with her finger print before she gets frustrated and uses her passcode instead.

The message is short and unpunctuated and very unlike Shae.

_‘can I see you’_

Nicole types a response back.

_'When?'_

She doesn't even look up before it beeps again.

_'now?'_

Shae doesn't do this. She likes appointment and plans and even her adventure has to be all scheduled out.

_‘Is everything okay?’_

Nicole sends the message and a second later years the words out loud, from Waverly,. The coincidence is so startling that she forgets reality for a moment,

“Uh, yeah, I’m just…”

Nicole watches the bubbles as Shae types out a message.

_‘i just have to see you’_

Nicole furrows her brows. Waverly leans to the side, still waiting for an answer. Nicole answers Shae first.

_‘Alright, where are you staying?’_

Shae sends a pin of her location and Nicole figures it’d take her a little more than a half hour to get there. She motions for Waverly to step aside. She does, and Nicole takes her hand and leads her away until they're hidden behind another shelf.

"I need to go," Nicole says. She doesn’t offer more of an explanation. She finds Waverly's eyes and makes strong, purposeful contact.

"Are you gonna be _okay_?" Nicole asks, nodding her head in Wynonna’s direction.

" _Nicole_ ," Waverly makes a huffing noise and loses her eyes. Nicole grabs her wrist.

"No, I'm serious. Look at me."

Waverly does, switching from looking at her left eye to her right before she settles for Nicole's nose instead. It's only a bit less uncomfortable.

"Are you gonna be good?" Nicole asks.

Waverly nods.

"Say it."

"I'm gonna be good," Waverly says. It's humiliating. It makes her feel like a child, the way Nicole leans in after, still holding her hand. Like she doesn't trust her, like she's looking for evidence. This must be how it feels to be on the other side of the interrogation table, Waverly thinks, and feels sorry for all the crooks that have the misfortune of getting caught by Nicole.

Nicole narrows her eyes in suspicion and Waverly focuses on not letting her expression falter. She keeps it up long enough for Nicole to accept it, nod, and give Waverly a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll see you later,” Nicole says, “Text me if…” she looks in the direction she last saw Wynonna, “…anything happens.”

Nicole turns away, and Waverly waits until she’s out of the shop – her exit signalled by the bell on the door – before she walks back to Wynonna. Wynonna has a bottle in one hand and a rattle in the other, looking between them like she’s trying to compare apples to oranges.

Wynonna smiles when she sees Waverly, and sets both items back on the shelf in the wrong place.

“Everything okay?” Wynonna asks.

“Yeah,” Waverly says, “Nicole just had to… go do something.” She realises she doesn’t actually know what – but figure it must have been important if it was enough to push her into leaving Waverly and Wynonna together.

“She… left?” Wynonna asks.

“I guess.”

“Well, when is she coming back? We have other stores to go to, I don’t know how long we can just wait up- “

“She didn’t ask us to wait up. We can go on without her.”

“Us?” Wynonna asks, incredulous. She takes a step towards Waverly, “Together? Alone?”

Waverly shrugs.

Wynonna tilts her head to the side.

“I guess she’s coming around,” Waverly says. Wynonna pulls a face.

“And here I thought she hated me.”

“Oh, she does,” Waverly picks up the rattle from where Wynonna set it down, and hangs it back up on the opposite rack, in the right place, “don’t worry about that.”

///

In Nicole’s head, driving to Shae still means driving to Nevada. She finds herself on the highway, headed a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction before she realises she’s on autopilot. The way she stops, turns, restarts violates traffic law, but who the hell is gonna report her, anyway.

She drives too fast all the way to the motel, just far enough out of Purgatory not to have to worry about running into too many locals. Nicole triple checks the room number Shae gave her, and the address, even though she knows she has the right place because of Shae’s car in the parking lot.

Nicole just parks for so long that her windows frost up. When the car next to her pulls out, she isn’t sure how much later, it finally jolts her away. Nicole steps out of the car and scans the numbers: Shae’s room is on the second floor.

Nicole reaches it and reconsiders knocking three times. When she finally does, Shae answers so fast Nicole is sure she must’ve seen here coming up, had been waiting just behind the door.

“Hi,” Shae says, seeming surprised even though she knew Nicole was on her way.

“Hey,” Nicole says, “How are you?”

“I’m… good.” Shae nods like she’s trying to convince herself of the same thing, “Do you want to….?” Shae steps aside and gestures into the single room bedroom/kitchen behind her.

"Uh, yeah, I'll..." Nicole lets it trail off as she steps past Shae. The entryway is narrow, narrowed than Nicole is used to, and their fronts almost brush as she squeezes past.

The room is still pretty much in its standard state. Nicole can spot Shae's suitcase packed away in an open closet, still zipped up. she hasn't unpacked at all, save for the laptop plugged in a charger in the wall.

Shae shuts the door and Nicole realises w0nders if the heating is broken in this room, or something.

"I didn't- “

"I wasn't-"

They speak and stop at the same time.

"No, you-"

"Sorry, I-"

Again. Nicole shakes her head in a laugh.

"I was just saying..." Shae waits for the interruption, but it doesn't come, "I wasn't sure if you'd come."

That gets Nicole's attention. She stops, and raises one eyebrow, but it's more than curiosity, "Of course I would, Shae, why wouldn’t I?”

Shae shrugs and her mouth pulls back in a way that seems uncomfortable, “I don’t know. I just thought, you know, after…. anyway, thank you for coming.”

Nicole nods. She’s scanning the room for a place to sit down: she can already tell that this isn’t going to be a short conversation. The bed is the most obvious, but that seems like far too much of something else.

Shae notices her looking. “You can sit,” she’s quick to say. Nicole keeps her expression in check: she doesn’t want to, not really, but she can’t tell Shae that.

Nicole walks over and slowly sits down. The movement feels like a tax on her joints.

“I can… do you want something to drink?”

Nicole shakes her head.

“Shae, what’s… why did you need me to come?”

Shae licks her lips and nods to herself. “Uh, yeah,” Nicole doesn’t miss the way she shifts around, “Sorry if I had you worried, it’s not an emergency or anything, I’m just…only here for a little while, and I needed to- “

“See me?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Shae,”_ She sits down next to her on the bed before Nicole has any chance to object. Nicole’s not stupid. She’s acutely aware of how alone they are in the room, how the curtains are closed, how she couldn’t see anything inside before Shae opened the door. Nicole can feel Shae’s body heat, she’s so close, “I’m in love with Waverly.”

Shae tightens. Nicole swears she can hear her bones clicking. Gears turning.

"You... got the results?" Shae tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

"The blood tests?" Nicole asks and Shae nods, "Yeah, we got em.”

Shae tightens her lips.

"So... you know then... that they are..."

"The baby's theirs and they're sisters, yeah. It's right there in black and white."

Shae lifts both eyebrows. She had expecting they’d be just a little bit coy about it.

"So, Nic," she says, as she looks down at her hands, "Are you gonna tell me how the hell you found yourself in this situation? How the hell this situation is even... possible?"

Nicole lifts her arms and crosses them. She opens her mouth but all that comes out is a dry, humourless laugh.

"Jesus, Shae. I wish I knew."

///

"She hasn't texted once?"

"No, I told you like three times."

"And you're sure you have signal?"

"Yes, three bars."

"And you checked Messenger too? Maybe she just didn't text."

"I checked everything, Wynonna. Twice," Waverly holds up two fingers to illustrate her point, "She hasn't texted, done anything, in an hour."

"She didn't say anything about where she was going?"

"No."

"Or how long she'd be?"

"I mean, I didn't get the impression she'd be gone all day. she left me with you, so-"

"You'd figured she'd be right back."

Waverly shrugged, but nodded. She rolled her shoulders to try and work out the ache than was starting to build: the shopping bags didn't look that heavy, but they got to be uncomfortable after an hour without a break.

"I'll take that for you," Wynonna shifts both her bags into one hand, and holds the empty one out to Waverly

Waverly shakes her head. It's light, but it's final, and Wynonna takes her hand back.

"You're pregnant."

"Yeah, not disabled."

"It's fine."

The silence hangs between them. Waverly shifts again with the bags, and Wynonna bites back an offer to help again. Someone passes them on the street, and Waverly is sure he wonders what they're doing, just waiting around.

"So, what now? Do we wait here for her?" Wynonna asks. She just wants to sit down for a bit: the extra weight she's carrying is already starting to catch up with her.

"I don't..." Waverly peers past Wynonna and onto the street, half expecting Nicole to turn up just at that second,"...I don't know. I left her a message."

Wynonna nods. "Well, I think this is just loitering. While we wait, do you want to..." Wynonna uses her free hand to gestures vaguely North. The only in that direction that means anything to either of them is the Homestead.

“Wanna go home?”

///

“I love Waverly, I love her, I-“

“I know you do, baby, I know, just- _fuck_ – deeper, oh my god.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently there was an issue with the tag. When I last checked, a month ago, the "Nicole/Waverly" tag was 'safe' and didn't link to the main Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught tag. This fic has never shown in the wayhaught tag before, so I didn't have a reason to think it would now. Apparently the tag wranglers got on that and changed it, because it briefly showed in the wayhaught tag (for less than a total of fifteen minutes). I only found out about this from upset commenters, and changed it to instead a misspelling of N1cole, to be sure it doesn't show in the main tag. It shouldn't be displaying there anymore.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is just like. 30% worse of a person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have tried like, so hard to make sure this doesn't show in the main wayhaught tag. I... really think it shouldn't. The tag is misspelt entirely with numbers instead of letters so I don't see how it could possible show there. If it doesn't work... then short of emailing ao3 I really don't know how to fix it. 
> 
> ANYWAYS, for the rest of ya: enjoy!

Stepping back over the threshold feels like she’s doing something wrong. It’s the same kind of pre-emptive guilt Waverly gets every time she walks through the beepers at a store, even though she knows goddamn well she hasn’t taken anything. Or the way she can’t stop herself from being just a little nervous around cops. There used to be one exception to that rule, but she doesn’t know anymore.

Wynonna crosses easily and only stops when she realises she isn’t hearing Waverly’s steps behind her. She turns sharply, and the movement scrapes and agitates the show. Wynonna’s hair flicks back over her face and her gaze drops to where Waverly has her feet planted; just on the wrong side of the bridge.

“You coming?” Wynonna asks. Waverly wishes her brain wouldn’t immediately go to the double entendre. Wynonna’s hand is held out.

Waverly tests her step softly, like a baby fawn. Like a child onto a frozen lake. Nothing beeps, nothing burns.

She takes Wynonna’s hand, and goes home.

///

“Do you have a name yet?”

"huh?" Wynonna knows damn well what Waverly is asking, but it takes her brain a few seconds too long to hear it.

"Names. For the baby," Waverly prompts. Her hands are set out on the table an intertwined, keeping them still and locked togehter like that is the only thing she can do to stop herself from picking at her skin.

"Oh.. yeah.. I guess I haven't." Wynonna takes the electric kettle off the stand before it finishes boiling. She's done that forever. Wynonna insists that the water doesn't need to boil, it's pointless, you don't need to disinfect the water and people only wait for the water to boil because they feel like they should, and then the water is too hot anyway. It drives Waverly insane.

Waverly turns around, forgetting about the just-under-boilded water for the minute. Waverly is hunched over, shoulders high and tight.

"Should we... talk about that?" Wynonna asks.

Waverly shrugs. Waverly _makes herself_ shrug. She wants to say yes, definitely, wants to open up her computer and look up names and make lists and text Wynonna about it and write it out on a chalk board and talk and talk until they rub them out, one by one by one.

“A baby needs a name, I guess.”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

Wynonna shakes her head. Her foot itches with the need to kick herself. She knew, she knew Waverly would want to know, but she'd just left.

"I... forgot to ask." Wynonna says, "I kind of like gender-neutral names, though, anyway...."

Wynonna's never thought about baby names once in her fucking life, so it's bullshit, talking like she has a 'stance' on any of this. She doesn't know how she feels about anything, but by the way Waverly leans in as she talks, nods like she's taking notes in class, Wynonna feels like she's just gotten away with some heist.

"What about you?" Wynonna asks. The quicker she directs attention to Waverly, lets her take over, the easier it'll be.

Waverly unlocks her hands and it's something like an automaton turning on, suddenly she'll all there, Wynonna can almost hear the gears. Waverly has a notebook and a pen on the table within seconds and Wynonna can't figure out where she got them from.

Waverly clicks her pen open and her hand hovers above the paper, making three tiny circles in the air like she's calibrating.

"So," she says, and the serious of it scares Wynonna for a second, "what about the 'w' thing?" Waverly's face breaks into playfulness a second later and Wynonna flood with relief. Wynonna chews at the corner of her mouth and turns her body the pace of her drawn-out 'uuhh'.

"I can't think of many more 'w' names, actually. Especially not gender-neutral ones."

Waverly writes something down on her notepad. It's upside down and too small, Wynonna can't even half read it.

"Welcome Earp?"

Waverly's face cracks open in a smile as she starts to laugh at her own joke. Wynonna rolls, flicks a tea towel in Waverly’s general direction. She laughs too, and in the noise and commotion, covers the noise of her scraping out the kitchen chair opposite Waverly. She sits down and is surprised by just how much of a relief it is to be off her feet, even just for a minute.

"I'll make up columns," Waverly's says, drawing lines so straight Wynonna swears that must be Waverly's own patent supernatural gift, "Boy’s names, girl’s names, neutral. And this box down the bottom, for names that neither of us like. Should I put 'Welcome' down there?"

"Write 'anything with a w'. I think it's about time that tradition died."

Waverly lifts an eyebrow, but follows through. Wynonna can't read the words, but she can see the forms. Waverly's hand writing is so pretty.

"Wyatt Earp would be rolling in his grave." Waverly says.

She watches the second it hits Wynona. Waverly hadn't meant it like that...

Waverly fidgets with the pen's click. It's the only sound for a good minute, after the laughter ends and the wind does unnaturally quiet.

Waverly pulls the book closer to herself, like she's trying to pull the words back, too. The movement snaps Wynonna out of it. It's stupid, she tells herself: they both know how they got here, and Wynonna knows it's probably just the pregnancy making her so sensitive. Her normal comedic deflection doesn't come as naturally.

“Oh, I’m sure he would.” Wynonna says. She motions for Waverly to hand over the pen and the notepad, and starts to scribble something down.

“How do you feel about ‘Alex’?”

///

They make a list that takes up three pages, about three quarter’s Waverly’s ideas and one quarter Wynonna’s. The page is worn in from all the writing, bending and crinkling almost like it’s gotten wet. There are imprints of the words three pages deep, four in some, where Waverly pushed down the hardest. They’re about to start the culling process – Waverly switches to a red pen for the act – when they hear the front door open.

Waverly looks at Wynonna, eyes wide, and closes the book. Her first thought is something demonic, and she spies Peacemaker over Wynonna’s shoulder, resting on the kitchen counter. They nod to each other. Wynonna turns to grab it, and just then, Nicole speaks.

“Sorry I ran a little late,” Nicole's voice is still in the other room by the time she enters the kitchen. She tosses her keys onto the counter, eyes down cast, and doesn't see either of them. "My phone died or I would've texted - I stopped home first but you weren't there so I figure - Hi, Wynonna - I figured this would be the next likeliest place to find you. What's that?" Her words come hard and fast. Nicole points to the closed book on the table: it's places right in the centre, pen places next to it, with Wynonna and Waverly each on opposite it. Like it's staged. Like it's a relic. Nicole reaches out for it and Waverly thinks that grabbing her arm would just make it worse.

She opens it and starts flicking. She doesn't come to the right page right away. Waverly's had this book since high school, and there are scattered notes, all out of order, all over the place.

Waverly can tell the exact second Nicole finds the right page because she pushed the book further away from herself, holding it up like she's trying to get the best light. She's mouthing the words, Waverly recognises the order. "Alex, Charlie.... what's... oh."

Nicole snaps the book closed again, "Baby names. For the baby. Right."

Wynonna has her head angled away from Nicole, and slightly down. The curtain of her tumbling hair between them, making her feel safer like a blanket against a monster as a child - not that the blanket ever kept her safe. She still hasn't let go of Peacemaker.

Nicole clears her throat, "Have you, uhh... chosen one, yet?" This time, Nicole looks directly at Wynonna. Wynonna mutters something back, and Waverly translates, "No, that's just the first list... we'll... eliminate some from there. Process of elimination..." Waverly's voice ticks up at the ends like she's asking a question.

“Oh, right, that’s nice…” Nicole rubs at an invisible spot on her arm. She eyes an empty chair at the table, between Waverly and Wynonna.

“Do you wanna, um, sit down?” Wynonna says, and remembers her time in psychiatric care. Following orders.

"Sure," Nicole's movements are a bit too fast as she moves. When she pulls out her chair it scrapes and Waverly winces. Her hand on the table taps out something slow with two fingers, until Nicole stops her - grabs her hands and intertwines their fingers, even though the angle is uncomfortable.

Wynonna weaves a hand under her hair and scratches at her scalp.

"Did you end up getting everything? For the baby?"

Wynonna gives Waverly another look, and she takes over.

"Yeah, it's just in the other room. We might have to see how we go, we'll probably have to go back after the... the birth, but we're good for now."

"Great!" Nicole flashes teeth and Waverly's eyes burn. Her energy is forceful, vampiric.

"Would you like some, uh, tea?" Wynonna points at the kettle, still where she'd left it. Cold again, now.

"That'd be great, thanks." Wynonna nods and put it back on the base. The second she turns away from Nicole, her face relaxes, she exhales. She flips the switch on the kettle and boils it all the way.

///

So it's her and her sister and the mother of her baby and her sister's girlfriend and the woman who hates her and there's only three people there, Wynonna thinks, and almost makes herself laugh. And the three of them are sitting around, drinking fucking tea. Wynonna knows how many sugars Nicole takes and Nicole knows that Wynonna's loved Waverly since she was eighteen, and it's all so absurdly civil. Wynonna doesn't know what's pulled Nicole off the warpath and she doesn't intend to ask, just being able to talk to her without the constant of undercurrent of threats against her person is quite enough.

It turned dark a half hour ago and they're on their third round of tea - Wynonna and Nicole are, Waverly switched to water - and Nicole starts glancing back at her keys on the counter.

"It's getting pretty late," Nicole folds her arms on the table, tucks her hands into the warm crooks of her arms. It's cold inside the house and even colder outside - snow storms don't make for ideal driving conditions, and Nicole knows all about the black ice on the road. She literally wrote the warning about it.

Wynonna rubs at the side of her head as Nicole pushes out her chair. She nods her head in the direction of the door, and Waverly starts to get her things together too.

""Why don't you just stay here?" Wynonna said. The words taste so bitter she doesn't even miss the coffee she can't have.

"Are you sure?" Nicole asks, but Wynonna can see the way her feet are planted. Facing toward her, solid. She'd not moving.

"Of course," Wynonna says, "It's too dangerous to drive anyway. I haven't changed upstairs at all since Waverly left, so, if you wanna-"

"-Sure, Wynonna, that'll be fine." Nicole wraps her arm around Waverly's midriff and pulls her in, "I think I might head up pretty soon, actually. Wave?"

Waverly nods along.

"Alright, then," Nicole's half way to the stairs when she turns out. "Thanks, Wynonna."

"You're welcome," Wynonna smiles and it feels like she's splitting her lips. She watches them climb up the stairs. _Spineless._

///

There's skin against her cheek and skin against her hand and Waverly feels like if she trails her fingers she can keep going, keep going forever. She's up before the sun is so there's no romantic morning light, but there's this: steady breathing, shallow but she can hear the trace of a voice of it, imagine speech, imagine an inhale before a kiss, imagine teeth and tongues and whispers.

She can feel imprints on her neck from years ago: The bruises are gone her body remembers. Her body never forgot. Waverly touches her neck before she realises it, and she can feel how cold her own skin is. She shivers and snuggles closer, and for a second before she realises that this isn't Wynonna she's in bed with, she thinks about a clearing in a forest.

Then her eyes open, and all she sees is red hair. Nicole turns over a second later, and her shirt rides up with the motion. Waverly withdraws her hand, slowly, like she's testing her hand-eye coordination.

Nicole is a light sleeper.

"Morning," Nicole says, her voice deepened and raspy with sleep and Waverly wishes it didn't sound so much like...

"Morning," Waverly sits up in bed and swings her legs off the edge of the bed. She's dressed in actual pyjamas: something she only started doing after she started seeing Nicole. Her body is sore but not for the usual reasons. They didn't have sex last night, Waverly had blamed it on a head ache instead of trying to explain that it felt like imperialism, like they were invaders in a foreign land.

She hears the bed shift as Nicole rises too, and seconds later feels a hand on her shoulder, rubbing in an attempt at a soothing pattern. A failed attempt.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Waverly rises from the bed and goes to run a hand through her hair before she remembers she slept with it in a braid. She tosses it over her shoulder and pulls of the elastic at the end as she walks, and starts pulling it out from the bottom. She walks past the bathroom entirely, and heads for the kitchen, where she hears noise.

She gets closer, and discerns it as something sizzling, seconds before the smell of bacon confirms it. She's barefoot, so doesn't make a sound as she approaches Wynonna from behind, her back turned and otherwise occupied.

"You're up early," Waverly says.

Wynonna jumps, but recovers quickly. "Not that early," Wynonna pokes at the bacon with the spatula and Waverly can't help but think that it seems like she's trying very hard to be occupied, "Just gets light late."

Waverly nods and crosses her arms over herself. Did Wynonna forget a window open, or something?

"You know, you shouldn't have to cook. Doesn't the smell of some food like, trigger morning sickness, or something?"

Wynonna shrugs, "Sometimes. It's not that bad. Besides, it's cook or starve."

Waverly leans against the counter, "No, I could just co-"

Waverly cuts herself off when she remembers she doesn't live here anymore. She's only been back for a single night and she's already re-orienting herself. It's too fast, too easy to slip into.

Wynonna gives a sad smile, "Don't worry. I'm a big girl, Waverly, I can feed myself."

"Right..."

Wynonna turns the heat down. The oil moves from spitting to just bubbling.Waverly can already tell it's gonna be burnt.

"So," Wynonna says, "What's up with...." she pauses for a second, listening for footsteps on the stairs, down the hall. She lowers her voice, "What's up with Nicole? Yesterday morning prison was the only thing keeping her from strangling me. Now we're all buddy-buddy all of a sudden? Drinking fucking tea? Having sleep overs? She wasn’t even mad that we were alone." The words come out harsh and breathy, directed at Waverly like an arrow. Waverly immediately falls into the conversation, echoing the tone.

"I know, right? I can't... she didn't say anything to me, but she's all... normally she..." Waverly rubs the back of her neck, "... _normally_ , she talks shit about you when you're not there. She didn't say _anything_ last night. I don't know. It seems like she’s…. apologising, or something.”

“So she suddenly feels sorry for hating me?”

Waverly shrugs, “I really don’t know – take the bacon off, the oil will catch fire – I really don’t know why she’s different all of a sudden. Let’s just hope it sticks.”

“Yeah, let’s hope.”

Wynonna finishes up breakfast while Waverly makes two coffees and one tea – refusing to give in even under Wynonna’s pleading. The exact second she places the salt down on the table, she sees Nicole’s shadow starting to come down the stairs.

“Perfect timing,” Wynonna says, “Are you hungry?”

“I…” Nicole leaves her mouth open while she ums, eyes flicking between the two of them. “I _am_ , actually, but I’ll have to eat at the station. They need me.” Nicole holds her phone up to show a notification, but it’s too far to read, and she pulls it back and stuffs it pack in her pocket quickly. Her jacket is folded over her arm and she unfolds it as she comes down the stairs, starting to put it on as she speaks.

“Oh, okay,” Waverly says, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She looks under the table for where she left her bag last night, and bends down to get it. She slings it over her shoulder and looks and Wynonna and just feels _bad_ : Wynonna made all this food and now they’re just going and-

“Wave, why don’t you stay? You don’t have to come with me.”

“I…don’t?” Waverly lets her bag drop from her shoulder in slow motion. It’s almost cinematic when it hits the ground.

“Sure,” Nicole says, like it’s nothing, “I can come pick you up later, or Wynonna can drop you back home, or whatever.”

“O.. _kay_..” Waverly says, slowly sitting down. It feel like a trick, like Nicole might pull it away in a second.  But she doesn’t. She adjusts her jacket and she swipes her keys off the counter and she heads out the door, and then they’re alone together.

///

“Yeah, I’m on my way, Shae… I don’t know, half an hour? Yeah, okay, see you soon. You too.” Nicole hangs up and it’s little more than gravity that brings her phone down into her lap. She exhales, watching the silhouette of the homestead against the bleak, grey sky.

There's smoke coming from the chimney, and Nicole can imagine them lighting a fire, sitting together, side my side. Touching at the arms, the knees, sitting on the floor or on blankets or half on each other. She makes herself angry with the thoughts, takes it farther in her head.... in her head, Waverly turns around, runs a hand up Wynonna's leg, and Wynonna doesn't stop her.

Nicole's hands tense on the steering wheel. She bites down on her teeth and swears her vision gets a bit darker as she lets it unfold in her head. How dare they, how dare they... Nicole catches sight of her phone just as her phone dings with a picture message from Shae. She knows exactly what it'll be a picture of. It almost cuts through the self-induced anger, but she shakes the softness off.

How dare they, Nicole sees Waverly's mouth open, and when that isn't enough anymore, tries to imagine Waverly when she was thirteen. Wynonna over her, a monster, all she's missing is horns.

Nicole excites herself so she'll stay insane. If she calms down she'll stop herself, she'll start to feel it, she'll put her phone away and turn back and block Shae's number.

She starts the car and knows every road rules she breaks by heart as she zooms off of the Earp land. Shae's sending her something else filthy, her phone won't stop beeping in the passenger seat.

In her rear view mirror, she can still see the smoke coming up from the homestead. Thicker now, blacker. It cuts through the sky like a charcoal smear on something perfect and white.

Nicole puts her foot down on the gas just as another text comes through.

_How dare they._

///

"Go fish," Wynonna reaches out for a card and keeps it close to her chest as soon as she's picked it, making a show out of the movement.

"You're lying."

"Not."

"You _are_."

"How do you know? You counting cards?"

///

Shae's on the bed and undressed, tired and laid over the messed up sheets. The pillows have been tossed onto the floor and all the lights in the room are out, only the window is open. Nicole is staring out of it, sitting on the edge of the bed. She's more dressed than Shae but that isn't saying much. She is hyper aware of every mark Shae left on her body - despite her warning to not leave too many marks -and is already planning how to hide them or explain them away. Her hands are clasped together between her knees and her neck hurts from keeping her head tilted down that long.

"You okay, baby?" Shae asks, but Nicole can hear how tired she is. She's gonna be asleep in a minute, Nicole won't keep her up. She knows from when they were married that Shae really doesn’t sleep enough, and she doesn't think that's changed in the time since.

Nicole rises from the bed. Her keys are on the nightstand. All the anger left her body the second she came and now she feels sick, she feels _sick_. She grabs her phone and looks up a florist near Purgatory: she’ll stop there before she sees Waverly again.

“Where are you going?” Shae’s just barely awake when Nicole swipes her keys off the table.

“Work,” Nicole says, while she brings up the florist’s address, “I’ll see you soon.”

///

“Oh, babe!” Waverly’s eyes go all wide and happy and she reaches for the bottom of the bouquet, grips it in her hands. Nicole lets go and lets her taken it.

_“You shouldn’t have.”_

**Author's Note:**

> //Preamble//  
> Alright. I know some people are gonna hate this. Such is your right. I know there are some people who really really hate just seeing fics with wynonna/waverly in the feed and I get it I'm sorry you have to see this. If there was a way to toggle off this appearing in the main Wynonna Earp archive, I would do it. 
> 
> In my defence, though.... I don't really consider this... an earpcest fic? Not really. I mean, like, they are the pairing but this fic, if you've read it you'll know that it certainly isn't trying to paint them together in a sweet or romantic or positive light. This is not meant to be a good couple. For example, I'm also in the Supergirl fandom and I've written fics where kara and mon-el are together in them, even though I despise karamel, so I wouldn't call those karamel fics even though that's the pairing. 
> 
> This is not meant to portray a healthy relationship. Wynonna, in this, is not a good person. This is not a nice fic. The title is literally 'vile' for god's sake. 
> 
> I think saying ‘don’t like don’t read’ is a cop out, and this isn’t even about me avoiding hate messages, but I’ll say with complete sincerity that if you think this fic will be hard for you to read or that it will make you feel bad, that I really suggest you read another fic. 
> 
> //Trigger Warnings//  
> (in order of appearance)  
> \- Underage drinking  
> \- Sibling incest  
> \- Attempted statutory rape  
> \- Discussion of rape  
> \- Underage (in some places) sex (Age 16)  
> \- Rape
> 
> //Disclaimer//  
> I don't own anything.


End file.
